


Street Stupid

by deltachye



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Homeless, Alternate Universe - Street, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Dyslexic Keith (Voltron), Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Italian-American Pidge, Japanese Shiro (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Orphan Keith (Voltron), Reader-Insert, Samoan Hunk, lmao do i know what im doing. no. but im doing it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9660935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [homeless!au reader x keith kogane]He's fighting a losing war. It's cold and it's lonely and it's miserable when you're alone on the street and get mugged by a group of idiots. There must've been rulebook about being homeless, but he never got to read it, and it always feels like he's drowning.Good thing for Keith though, 'cause now he's got you—a crazy goddamn street smart bitch on his side—and, well... he must've been crazy stupid himself for liking you.





	1. 1 - Don't let your shit get stolen.

_guess life is long when soaked in sadness ; i want to hold you like you're mine._

* * *

 

“Give it _back_!”

Keith didn’t get it. He knew that it’d get hard, and he knew that it’d be rough, but he didn’t think that bad things would happen to him for no good reason.

The guy who’d stolen his knife snickered, tossing it up and down in his hand. He caught it by the blade, extending the hilt just enough so that Keith could reach for it. Keith tried to grab it back but had the knife snatched away again. He was a kid trying to get the candy. Like a hot potato, it was tossed to the next guy, and then the next. One of the thief’s buddies grabbed Keith’s arm from behind and drove him into the ground, putting him in such a painful position that he couldn’t even move. Through teary eyes, Keith watched the guy tuck his last belonging into his waistband.

“Better luck next time,” the man said in a mockingly apologetic voice. The group of three scampered off, the sound of their retreating footsteps like rats in the walls. Keith breathed hard, trying to soothe the fire in his popped shoulder—but then the pain served to anger him more and he screamed out, punching the wall with his fist. He regretted it instantly, now having two bad hands as the brick wall retaliated by giving him an aching pinky finger.

All’s well that ends well, but this ending was pretty much the opposite of well. It was ‘well, shit!’, and Keith happened to be the star of the show.

“Boy, you really fucked up.”

Keith jumped at the sudden sound of the voice and turned, feeling like a beaten and humiliated dog for how he felt. He saw you standing in the entrance of the alleyway, an XXXL black hoodie hanging over your skeletal frame. There used to be an image printed over the front, but it had worn away into a melange of greyed out fabric paint. You were wearing ripped leggings, with sneakers even worse for wear, and a thin jacket over the oversized hoodie. The balance of your clothes to your stature was ridiculous and made you look like a kid wearing their dad’s clothes for dress up. Your hand, only visible because you’d rolled up your sleeves, was extended to him. It was clean for the most part, with worn down nails and a peachy layer of ash over the dry skin. He looked up at you before reaching out to take your wrist, only to end up falling forwards by grasping empty air.

“Hah! Fucked up again, didn’t you bud?” You hocked a nasty laugh as you shoved your hands back into your pockets, throwing your head back to giggle. Looking down at him, your face was dark in the shadows, your hair alight by the thin ray of autumn sunlight that managed to streak by the cityscape. Maybe you had been pretty in the before pictures, but this was the after, and you only looked gaunt and pallid. He could see blue-green veins criss-cross under your pale skin, traced like lightning strikes, accentuating the purple half moons weighing down your darkened eyes. Combined with the ugly grin on your face, he recoiled away from you, displeasure roiling in his gut.

“Leave me alone,” he muttered spitefully. This wasn’t the first time he’d been played. He got to his feet but winced, grappling at his shoulder as it flared up with hot pain. The muggers had definitely torn something, and because of his own idiocy, he’d probably broken something in the other hand. Still, he didn’t want to sink back to the ground in front of you and made to walk away before he realized you were blocking his only way out.

“Move,” he said through ground teeth. You were still smiling and cocked your head, tangled hair falling out of your hood as you did. He’d expected it to look stringy and matted like everybody else’s, but your hair looked healthy—healthier than the rest of you did—and he could even catch a whiff of sweetened coconut coming off of you. It dizzied him.

“Oh, nah. I’m street. Don’t get me wrong,” you said abruptly, pulling your fingers through hair absent-mindedly. He didn’t know how you were able to guess his thoughts so easily, but the thought of you knowing his thoughts unnerved him. Working the tendons in his jaw, he repeated himself, giving his best icy glare.

“ _Move_.”

“Ooh. Tough for a guy that just got jumped, eh? Your arm looks like it’s gonna need to be up in a sling, too.” You poked at it and he winced, jerking away from you. You snorted, hand in the air. “You done fucked up.”

“So you keep telling me,” he replied testily. Clutching his shoulder, he glowered. “Look, if you want to make fun of me, that’s fine. Just get out of my way.” He tried to move past you again but you mirrored his movements, stepping back in front of him. You were small and he could probably knock you down, but his thoughts were getting muddled by the throbbing pain as shock started to wear away.

“Take a seat,” you said suddenly, confusing him. You pulled a backpack off your shoulders and rummaged in it, retrieving a red bandana from the inner depths. You looked at him expectantly and his brow furrowed slowly with suspicion.

“What? Are you going to _choke_ me out?” he asked snidely. “It’s not like I’m tough competition. If you want to off me, I’ll do you a favour and jump off a bridge instead.”

“I’m not going to choke you,” you replied, rolling your eyes. “I’m going to put your arm in a sling. That is, unless you don’t want me to. Got an appointment with the bridge?” You wriggled your eyebrows and held up the triangle shaped cloth again. When he hesitated, you groaned. “‘s not like it’s soaked with acid or nothing.”

“Why are you helping me?” he demanded.

“‘Cause I want a favour from you. Why else?”

He weighed his options. Being a street kid like this meant that he wasn’t about to waltz into a hospital and ask nicely. You seemed sincere enough. Still, owing favours in this world could mean big, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to give you that leverage. But the pain in his shoulder was starting to really eat away at him, and he knew he wouldn’t last long without any support. He couldn’t help himself, either.

Slowly, he sat.

“How long you been sleepin’ concrete?” you asked. Your voice was surprisingly pleasant to listen to when you weren’t jeering at him, and he closed his eyes, wincing in sharp agony as you pulled at his arm roughly. Your off-kilter manner of speaking made him feel even more alienated and he couldn’t help a small sigh of discontent.

“Couple of weeks,” he replied vaguely.

“I’ve been hitting pavement a year or somethin’. Doesn’t get any easier. Sucks more shit, even.”

Your fingers brushed his neck and he cringed. He could feel you tying the knot of the makeshift sling, and the chill of your cold hands made the hair on his neck stand up angrily. But you removed your hands soon after, wasting no time in pulling the backpack back onto your shoulders. Keith let his arm relax, surprised by how well you’d done the sling.

“…thanks,” he muttered dejectedly. You laughed, a wry smile on your face.

“I’d tell you that ‘you’re welcome’, but you’re probably not. What’d they take from you, anyways? I could hear your whining a whole block down.”

“They stole—” Keith stopped himself before he could say anything else, remembering his place. This wasn’t an every day chat between pals or passers-by—this was the street, and the only friends he had were himself and the cold. Your smile grew as he shook his head, and he was reminded of the Cheshire cat, made up of nothing but its sharp ass teeth.

“You know, you don’t seem that bad. But… I mean, you let _Lance_ beat you up out of all people? _Lance_. I saw Hunk take you down, too. Like, I can see you getting fucked up by Pidge, ‘cause she’s tough shit. But Hunk? And _Lance_? Boy…” You paused to laugh at him, but Keith was getting used to it, so he let you. Still snickering, you finally calmed yourself down with a long sigh. You adjusted the strap of your fraying bag as you looked at him a bit closely, your smile tapering away a bit. Suddenly, you were serious, and you touched the fingers of your cold hand to the makeshift sling gently. “But hey. If you stick with me, Lance’ll probably give you whatever he took back. Seemed important to you.”

“He would?” Keith asked, unable to help himself from perking up a bit. He tried to squash his hopes, but they were rising, and he bit his lip anxiously. That knife… he didn’t just want it back, he was pretty sure he needed it. If you could help him, then maybe…?

You got to your feet, brushing off your knees with a scoff. Your sleeves unrolled themselves and your hands disappeared into them, returning the image of a pseudo-child to your slim frame. He found it funny, seeing you as childish or innocent when you were probably made of tougher stuff than he was. And that wasn’t easy to do.

“No guarantees,” you said in an upbeat tone he hadn’t heard in a long time. You grinned widely at him once more. “But now you owe me, so you’ll have to stick with me anyways.”

“Right…” Keith groaned, getting to his own feet. He flexed the fist in the sling. “What do you want from me?”

“You got any cash?” you asked thoughtfully after a moment’s thought. He snorted.

“Does it _look_ like I have any money? I might have like four dollars. Max. You want that?”

“No, I don’t want your crusty four bucks!” you objected, your nose wrinkling indignantly. You sighed thoughtfully, clicking your tongue as you looked him over, searching for valuables. He stared back at you tiredly, knowing full well that he had nothing to give.

“Well, how about this.” On a hand, you pointed at fingers as you started barrelling off a list. “You can do my dumpster diving, and you can be my space heater. We clean you up a bit and you can do some jobs for me, too. Most importantly, you can watch my back. ‘n I’ll even d’you another favour and help you track Lance before he pawns whatever he took from you—sweeten the pot. Deal?”

“Watch your back?” Keith repeated dubiously, his eyes narrowing. “From what?”

“Uh, _everything_. You been here a couple of days. You know how it is, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” Keith muttered derisively under his breath, even smiling at himself bitterly. “I should be good at this. I’ve been alone all my life. But…”

“Hm,” you mumbled thoughtfully. Suddenly, you thrust out your right hand, skeletal and pale but a hand all the same. He looked at it and laughed acridly.

“I’m not going to fall for the same trick twice,” he told you, but you were still smiling in that off-handed carefree way.

“This time’s for realsies,” you chirped, even bouncing on your heels. You let your outstretched hand hang in the air. “We got a deal? You can’t say no, ‘cause you owe me. And I can kick your ass if you run. You ain’t going nowhere with a dinged shoulder if I piledrive you.”

Keith looked down at it. It had never been easy. He’d lied a bit, too, about being alone all his life—because at first, he’d had Shiro. In the beginning, he’d at least had somebody to lean on. He had somebody good.

But _now_ he was alone. Now, he had nobody except for a crazy girl who kept laughing at him like the classroom bully and the elected loser.

Still, that had to be better than nobody at all. It just… well, it had to be, because the alternative was even worse. Grudgingly, he took your hand, shaking it once gingerly.

“Fine. We’ve got a deal.”

“You got a name? Or should I just call you Emo Mullet Kid?”

“Emo—?!” Keith choked on his own annoyance. “God, no… my name’s Keith.”

“Keith.”

Your hand was still in his, because you hadn’t let go. He probably should’ve, but he found himself unable to—not because of the dully biting ache that made it hard to bend his fingers, but because he hadn’t felt the warmth of touch in far too long. Even though your fingers were icy cold from the wind, he could feel the warmth under your translucent skin like a faraway memory. Thoughtfully, you smiled up at him.

“Good t’ meet you, Keith. I’m [Name].”

Probably not on purpose, you squeezed his hand. Still, your grip was a lot stronger than a fractured bone could handle and he fainted before he could hear you yelp and call him a ‘huge weenie’.


	2. 2 - Get good at being bad.

Keith wasn’t sure how things were going to go with you. It was giving him anxiety as the seconds in his oversized watch went by like lovers in a park—but there was nothing he could do about it. That helplessness frustrated him the most. He’d lived a lot of his life knowing how things were going to go, and having the control to save himself when things veered off that safe path. But it seemed that Shiro had taken that safe path with him, and things always ended up fucking him over no matter what he did, so maybe it was time to let go and fall.

The first thing he noticed was that people started to notice him. A man actually apologized under his breath as he dodged Keith’s path, which had never happened before. Walking beside you seemed to brighten up his image. There was something about the homeless that made them disappear into the concrete like pebbles tossed to the wind. Before, he hadn’t minded the constant cold shoulder, because it wasn’t like he wanted to talk to anybody anyways. But humans are social pieces of shit. It took him a very long time, but eventually, Keith had come to the realization that he was lonely. The muttered ‘sorry’ bounced around in his head, echoing like a snare track before you nudged him gently, taking care to avoid his injuries. 

“How’s the arm?” you asked casually. He still didn’t know where you were leading him, your constant vague declarations of ‘you’ll see!’ doing little for him, so he merely did a half shrug.

“Okay.”

“You didn’t twist it after falling?”

“No,” he muttered, a warmth flashing across his cold cheeks as he remembered waking up with your face pressed down into his. He looked down at the left hand, which you’d splinted with a popsicle stick and old athletic tape. He glanced over at you shortly, and although he knew he was out of practice when it came to conversations, he had a feeling that you would go along with pretty much anything without much complaint. You had that certain headstrong but free-flowing je ne sais quoi to you that made a tenseness in his shoulders drop—just a bit.

“How’d you get so good at first aid?” he asked. The response came quick.

“I was studying pre-medicine at a pretty good academy. They let me earn credits for university while I was there.”

Keith nearly tripped over his own shoelaces, catching himself in time to gape. “Y-you were?!” he stammered out of shock after you said nothing further. You glanced at him and nodded once as if that should be no surprise.

“Yep.”

When you were silent again, Keith couldn’t help a tick of annoyance. A bombshell like that didn’t just go away—there was something about you that made him feel as if he needed to know you. Not just _want_ , but a _need_ , something he got very good at differentiating after most of those wants were taken away. He realized he was staring and looked away, allowing himself an annoyed sigh before giving it up. People like you were secretive to a fault and there was probably no chance that he’d learn how a girl like you ended up with a guy like him in the same battle arena. 

“Was it student debt?” he asked after a while of tense silence. The sun was high up in the sky now, and it was warm on his face despite the wind chill. Judging by how low it was in the sky, he knew that he wouldn’t be seeing much sun soon. It was already cold in the early months of September, and he wasn’t looking forwards to seeing January snowfall. The sun’s wide rays didn’t seem to be warming you up to his questions, because you merely ignored him without a word. You hadn’t asked him any questions about himself than the first one: ‘how long have you been here?’ He was starting to wonder if you even cared for him at all. 

Suddenly, he had to wonder why that thought stung so much.

“We’re here,” you said, abruptly skidding to a stop. He looked around, but there was nothing of immediate interest. Across the street was a tall skyscraper out of many. You dug around in your pockets for something before peering up at him.

“Guess you won’t be much help,” you mused with a judgemental stare. He raised an eyebrow.

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Pickpocketing,” you replied in the same ‘duh’ tone that he was starting to expect from you. He recoiled at the word, physically stepping back once.

“You’re going to _steal_?” he asked in a hushed voice, as if there might be a police officer lurking over his shoulder. He even looked around to make sure there were none. Your eyes widened before narrowing with suspicion in a shutter flash.

“What, you haven’t? How the hell’ve you made it, then?”

“I don’t steal,” he repeated adamantly, shaking his head so that his hair bounced. “I ask around. I take leftovers. I squat with a cup in my hand. But I don’t _steal_.”

You seemed annoyed by his outburst and crossed your arms. “Oh. You’re one of _those_ people. Think you’re above it despite being at the bottom… do you know where we are, Keith?” You spread your arms wide. “We’re standing right outside a law office. For what? Not defending innocents or prosecuting criminals, but for rich people who’d prefer if they could just cut their kids in half rather than raise ‘em right. We’re those kids. We’re _street_. Life isn’t gonna come easy and it ain’t gonna come at all if you don’t do what you gotta do.” You dropped your arms and prodded a stiff finger into his chest. “I’d be dead if I weren’t fishing wallets out of these whiny bitches’ pockets. ‘S not like I’m takin’ pennies out the Santa buckets, you hear me?”

Keith would’ve knocked your hand out of his face if you hadn’t pulled it away first. Although he was a bit reassured by your claim of only stealing from the rich, he could almost taste Shiro’s cold disapproval in the back of his throat.

_Patience yields focus, Keith._

“What do you need the money for?” he asked. You were already pissed and scowled even more, premature wrinkles lining creases of your face. Pacing, you threw the word at him with a curve, and he nearly winced. 

“ _Everything_? God, I didn’t know I’d picked up a fucking pussy shit eating—”

“I’m just saying. If you’re hungry, I know a place that’ll give you food for free. Good food.”

“Those charity centres are bullshit!” you began shrilly, but he shook his head.

“Not a shelter. A restaurant. The works. Little soy sauce packets, too.”

You paused mid-rant and your brow furrowed with suspicion, but he could tell that he’d hooked you as gears turned inside your skull. With a defeated sigh, you shot a wistful look towards the law offices before glaring at him.

“You’d best not be busting, Keith, or I’ll bust _your_ self-righteous ass.”

\---

It was actually a short walk to Golden Dragon from Centre Street. The owner greeted him with an aged smile as he walked up, but the old Asian man’s face quickly morphed to concern as he pointed at the makeshift sling.

“What happened to you, Keith?”

“An accident,” Keith lied vaguely. He jerked his head over to you. “Do you have anything for my friend?”

“Sure thing. I saved everything we made yesterday. My son had a feeling I would be seeing you soon.”

“Thanks, Mr. Okita. Tell Tobi and Rei that I said hi.”

“What’re you saying?!” you hissed at his side once the owner slipped into the back. You gripped his jacket sleeve and pulled once, the tug reminding him of the kids that used to tease him about his haircut. He blinked before realizing you probably didn’t speak Japanese.

“I’m telling him to call the police on you,” he drawled. “Bye, [Name].”

The flash of panic in your eyes made him smile inadvertently and you caught it, immediately scowling. You made to punch him in the arm but thought better of it, resorting to prodding him needlessly hard instead. He laughed as you seethed. He hadn’t laughed in a long time, but somehow, it came easy as you fumed at his shoulder.

“Honestly! You want me to shit my damn pants?! Well… I didn’t know you were bilingual. Or that you knew anybody that would help you out.”

“Yeah… the owner of this restaurant was friends with Shir—uh, somebody I knew. I came around a couple of weeks back and he helps me out.”

“What, you have a tab or somethin’?”

“No. He can’t legally serve food from yesterday, but I’m happy to take it. Tastes as good as if it were done normally, anyways.”

You were nodding and your eyes shone with an almost youthful curiosity. “I see… Keith, you’re not such a dumbass after all. I’d say ‘genius’, but it doesn’t apply.”

“Thanks,” he replied dryly. Still, the backhanded compliment was as much of a compliment he was going to get from you, so he took it with a bit of glowing pride. Mr. Okita reappeared in the shop window with a tray loaded with pre-packaged food, smiling at the both of you.

“It’s good to see you have somebody by your side. But…” Mr. Okita’s face fell. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call the government, Keith? Do you have a home, yet?”

“I’m sure,” Keith replied quickly, ignoring his second question entirely. Lowering his voice, he leant in. “I can’t go into the system when I’ve still got a job to do. Sorry, Mr. Okita… but thank you.”

“Takashi must be worried about you in the afterlife.”

Keith’s throat tightened and his gaze flicked to the ground shamefully. Picking up on the deteriorating conversation, you got up on your tiptoes to grab the tray and flashed your best smile to Mr. Okita.

“Thank you, sir!” you chimed in a higher-pitched voice than normal, grabbing the edge of Keith’s sleeve as you led him away. He couldn’t help but glance back to Mr. Okita, who was still shaking his head.

“Thanks,” he muttered as you sat down at a table that obscured Golden Dragon from view. “You bailed me out.”

You shrugged in response and rolled back your gigantic sleeves, breaking open a pair of chopsticks and hungrily eyeing the cartons one by one. You settled for the yakisoba on top and ate ravenously, hardly pausing to breathe as you wolfed it down. With his dominant hand down and the other as useful as a toilet paper roll, Keith merely watched, having lost his appetite after talking to Mr. Okita in any case. You finished the carton and was reaching for the next one before noticing that he wasn’t eating.

“Need me to feed you?” you asked in a joking tone, but you had a bit of a serious clip to it, making Keith believe that you’d probably do it (if he guaranteed you another favour). He shook his head. You shrugged nonchalantly. “‘Kay, more for me.”

“You don’t have anybody you know?” he asked all of the sudden, the same curiosity that drove him to ‘needing to know you’ sparking up as he watched life burst in your eyes as you ate. There were mannerisms of yours that seemed distantly familiar but not really, as if seen from the eyes of another person’s crack indie film. It was subtler than déjà vu but he could feel it all the same, like a jolt of recognition by seeing a stranger’s grin or the chill of a certain snowfall. It was like the memories of a past life were tugging at him. You looked up with a spot of brown sauce by your chin and shook your head.

“Nobody that wants to know _me_ ,” you replied cryptically, but for once, he understood perfectly. You wiped your chin and began to eat more slowly, your shoulders having relaxed after having shovelled (copious amounts) of food in you. Continuing, you stirred your rice, your voice dripping with faraway thought. “I always worked better alone, anyways. Failed every group assignment I ever had back in school. So… you’re pretty lucky to have nice old guys that can cook killer noodles for you.” 

“I thought I worked better alone, too,” Keith mused quietly, more to himself than to you.

“What?” you asked, opening the third box as you finished off the second. He shook his head.

“Nothing.”

“Listen, Keith. ‘Bout what I said earlier, when you pussied out of pickpocketing…”

“I didn’t ‘pussy out’,” Keith protested, but you waved him off.

“Maybe you’re right. I mean, keeping your slate clean ’s a way to keep yourself from going nuts, right? ‘Clean conscious; clean body’… or something like that.”

A bit of him was immensely relieved to hear you agree with his outlook. He’d said it was his, but it was mostly Shiro’s, adopted at a young age. He was about to nod before you pointed your chopsticks at him forcefully.

“But that also means there’s a ‘maybe you’re _wrong_ ’. Face it. You won’t last off of this old guy’s food forever. You need cash in this shithole. You’re not eighteen, right? So you’re shirking the system. And you can’t do that forever without green Benny in your pocket.” You looked at him closely now, a lifetime and a half of experience behind your young eyes. “Get good at being bad. Doing the right thing isn’t always going to be right. You’ll know, soon enough. I was like you, and now…”

You continued to eat, trailing off, but Keith understood.

_Now, I’m like this._

Keith couldn’t help but feel that suddenly, he’d learnt a little too much about you, and nothing at all at the same time.


	3. 3 - Don't trust anybody. Especially not yourself.

Maybe it had been your apparent age that had gotten him to drop his guard on you so easily. You didn’t look much older than fourteen, and since he knew that you were actively avoiding foster care, you were somewhere in your late teens, and a minor. It had been a while since he’d met somebody with anything other than filthiness or a scowl in common. But it was naïve of him to be so trusting of you. You were like the rest of them, beaten down and worn away by cold winters and colder concrete. Maybe your smile was warm, but he had no idea who you were. Who you _really_ were. You were a girl who pulled your hand away when he needed to get up. That was how he had to start seeing you. After all, he’d gone for smiles before, and that had never ended up well for him.

“It’s going to get dark soon,” you noted suddenly, peering at the oversized silver watch on his wrist. He looked at it too and felt the dredges of despair boil up in his gut. He hated falling asleep. Sleep was where the dreams were. He’d rather suffer through things consciously than find himself running circles in his own head. 

You were looking him over curiously. He met your eyes and arched a brow questioningly. 

“You don’t have a sleeping bag?” you asked, pointing at his frame as if he might’ve been hiding it somewhere.

“No,” he replied honestly. He didn’t have anything on him except for the same old change of clothes, and the knife—well, he no longer had the knife on him, but he was determined to get it back.

“What, you actually _make_ it into the hostels? Shelters?” You looked surprised as you accompanied him back outdoors. The autumnal weather bit at his tender flesh eagerly, only serving to remind him of worse things to come. He watched you draw your jacket around yourself absentmindedly before shaking himself out of it, hasty to answer your question to avoid an awkward gap of silence. 

“No, I don’t.”

“What… do you sneak into banks or something to sleep in?”

“No.”

“Well, where _do_ you sleep?”

“Outside.”

“Like _that_?” You gestured at his clothes, admittedly thin. He shrugged again. The cold was eternally present, but he was usually able to find somewhere to rest for a couple of minutes before moving on. You seemed besides yourself.

“Y’know you’ll catch a cold like that!” You swatted at his uninjured arm with each syllable. “Ain’t no tea and honey from mama for us kids if you get sick! Idiot Keith.”

“If you call me ‘idiot Keith’ from now on, I swear to god…” 

Still, your words—in particular, one word—tolled a bell of melancholy deep in his gut.   
_Mother…_

“—Keith. You listening?”

“What?” He jerked himself back into alertness. The drifting into the realm of thoughts had always been a bit too easy, the lines between reality and illusion blurring because of his lack of sleep. He’d never been an easy sleeper, but at least he’d had a bed before now. You scowled and jostled him with a bony elbow into the ribs.

“I _said_ , do you know a good place to hole up for the night?”

“I thought you’d have better experience,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, you’re prolly right. But I want to know what you think.”

His suspicions flared up again. He’d practically flunked kindergarten because of his unwillingness to cooperate in a team or with a group, so hearing somebody extend their considerations to him was ridiculous. Still, he decided that there’d be no harm in answering and thought hard.

“There’s this pathway in that park off the train tracks at Eighth. It’s hidden from view but surrounded on three sides, so the wind doesn’t get you too badly.”

“Great,” you chirped. “Lead the way.”

Again, he stared. People never let him lead projects because of the aforementioned ‘people problem’. You cocked your head expectantly when he didn’t move and snorted with amusement.

“You’re the one missing a knife, not me. I’m not gonna shank you in my sleep, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” he spat out quickly. Shiro’s warm smile was at the vestiges of his memory and he shook his head, hurriedly stalking off towards the park before he could dwell on it. Startled by his sudden change in heart, you had to jog to keep after him, and your shorter legs made for a bad mismatch in pace.

“Hit a nerve?” you asked, a bit more subdued. He remained silent, focusing on keeping Shiro out of his head. He counted his footsteps one after the other, the numbers adding up to a hundred and fourteen before you spoke up again.

“Sorry, Keith. Won’t happen again.”

The numbers crumbled and he looked up at you, slowing his gait. You were looking at your own feet, your hair frazzled but tucked behind your ears that were reddening in the cold. Seeing you plod along at his shoulder tugged at something in his gut, like a memory of a past life, and the chill of realization was much cooler than the single degree weather.

Was he starting to like you?

That couldn’t happen. Connections didn’t go much further than traded food stamps and friendships were cheery things plastered on kid’s posters to make people feel better about their shitty existences. Trust was a joke and he’d already gotten bit before because of his own idiocy. It just… he didn’t think he could take it if it happened again. 

He had to get colder. 

“Whatever,” he muttered in response, and the rest of the walk was played by sightread silence.

\---

The nook was unoccupied, much to his relief. It was made of a stone platform, geometric architecture creating sharp corners that were good for blocking gusts of wind. He kicked apart a pile of leaves to check for pigeon shit or snakes, and finding it clear, he sat. It was like he’d had the breath sucked out of his lungs once he did and his head spun woozily, attempting to comprehend the events of the past few hours. His lifelong treasure had been snatched out of his hands like a penny out a broken fountain. He’d managed to fuck up not one—but _two_ of his arms. Lastly, he’d landed himself with a crazy girl who’d probably end up fucking him over in the end while laughing.

There was a rustling sound and he jerked back to consciousness, his eyes shooting open before falling half-shut again. You were opening up what looked like a giant sheet of tinfoil. He was almost tempted to ask that jokingly, but remembered his stance on keeping his distance from you, and shut himself up. You didn’t even seem to notice and began to talk to him anyways, stomping on his adamant “not talking to you” position, starting to explain as you shook out the metallic fabric.

“This cost me two weeks of food rations. I got it from Coran down at the sketchy trading markets, but it’s good insulation. It’s lighter than a sleeping bag, too.”

He ignored you, allowing his head to fall forwards onto his chin. He didn’t like lying down these days. It left him too open. But his back was permanently aching, only adding to the pains that were piling up fast on his body. You woke him out of the purgatorial state of half-sleep by pulling on his jacket.

“What is it?” he snapped disgruntledly. You looked surprised by the question.

“Aren’t you going to lie down?”

“I’m fine,” he responded curtly. You pursed your lips before reaching forwards, grasping the makeshift sling knot and pulling upwards sharply. He screamed aloud as the hot jolt ran along his radius and shoulder, and before he knew it, you had pinned him onto the ground. He looked up at you, into your eyes, backlit with nothing but the trickling stars. In a way he could barely see you at all, but there was light behind your eyes, warming him. Your hair tickled his chin as you leant forwards, muttering in a low voice.

“You need to rest. Otherwise you’ll never heal. It’s hard, but we’ve got to take care of ourselves because nobody else is going to do it for us. Okay?”

He said nothing in response. You got off of him, the weight disappearing off of his hips in an almost regretful way. Suddenly you returned, at his side. The foil blanket draped over him, easily fitting over as it fell back to the Earth lazily. Jerkily, he tried to look at you, but you’d already hidden your face by burying it into his side. Your arms wrapped around his like a crow’s claws might, but they were careful.

“Sharing body heat’s good,” came your muffled voice. “Sleep.”

“But…”

He couldn’t find a way to articulate his insecurities to you. His heart raced, bringing a fiery heat to his face to combat the burn of wind chill. You felt soft against him, contrasting against the hard concrete of the ground, and he could feel the warmth of your body seeping over to warm his.

The stars in the sky gleamed as if to laugh at him, but he could no longer resist the biological demand for rest. So, despite his despair and despite his protests, Keith fell asleep.

\---

“Shirooo! Shi…. ro!”

“Yeah, that’s right bud! Shiro! Shiro! Hey Keith, who am I?”

“Shiwo…?”

“Ah, you had it right the first time, Keith! Try again. Who am I?”

“Papa!” Keith exclaimed through the toothy grin, swinging his arms around for attention. “Papa!”

“Mr. Shirogane…”

Shiro looked away from Keith after giving him a quick, pain laced grin. He crossed his broad arms as he shook his head to the woman, who stood looking between Shiro and Keith fretfully as she clutched her clipboard. Long red nails tapped the back of her board to the tempo of Fur Elise. 

“He’s got no parents,” Shiro muttered thoughtfully, almost to himself.

“Yes, but are you absolutely _sure_ you’d like to adopt him? It’s clear Keith has taken quite the affinity you. But—and of course, with all due respect—I would just like to remind you that taking care of a child is extremely difficult… and it would be very strenuous on a _college_ student no less—”

“Mrs. Watney. Please, just look at him. He’s got _nobody_. He hasn’t even had a chance to have anything bad happen to him yet, but he’s got nobody. I need to be there for him. Nobody else will be if I’m not. Nobody’s going to take care of him if I don’t.”

The woman sighed. Her fingers stopped tapping and, resigned, she held out the clipboard. 

“Then… I’ll have your signature here, and here…”

The scribbling sound of that ballpoint pen was one of Keith’s earliest memories.

The dream shifted and he was older now, holding an ice pack to his swollen jaw as Shiro drew up a chair beside him. Keith took care not to look at him, staring at his boots. Shiro’s hair had greyed considerably from the first time Keith had met him, and through Shiro’s broken Japanese lessons, Keith developed the habit of calling him Shiro—white—instead of Takashi. 

“Heard you beat up a kid pretty bad.”

“It’s ‘cause he was a bully,” Keith spat out, one of his front loose and causing his syllables to lisp. Keith squirmed in the chair uncomfortably at the memory of the stupid kid’s face. “He kept callin’ me a loser because I don’t have a mom.”

“Still… you can’t fight bullies with more violence. Fighting fire with fire adds to the problem. You’ve always been a fiery-hearted kid, and that passion’s great, but hurting people’s never okay. With patience yields focus, Keith.”

“Patience is for idiots,” Keith retorted sullenly. 

“Then I’m an idiot.” Shiro smiled wearily, but within the lines were genuine warmth. “But at least I know I’m an idiot that’s also a good person. You have to be, too. The world’s too full of bad people, but you’re good. So start acting that way.”

Shiro had a magical trick up his sleeve that enabled him to cast a spell and make Keith cry. Keith never cried—not when he’d broken his arm and not when he’d been told he was a loser without a mom—but seeing the faint disappointment in Shiro’s eyes had him bawling. The older man drew Keith in for a hug, patting the small boy on the shoulder blades surely with the prosthetic arm. Despite the hard coldness of it, the rest of Shiro was warm, and Keith clung to it.

“It’ll be okay, kid. You’ll be fine.”

And then he was at the funeral. The suit was too big and he couldn’t see his hands. Shiro had always tied his ties for him, and he hadn’t bothered to wear one. Shiro would’ve liked to see that he was rebellious. 

But the sun was too bright and the sky was too beautiful. Keith wanted to see it rain. He wanted to see everybody suffer like he was suffering, but nobody could have understood how much it hurt him. Shiro’s fellow officers mingled, and Keith even heard one man laugh. His fists balled angrily before he turned away, not wanting to cause a scene at Shiro’s own funeral. He owed the man that much.

 _It’ll be okay, kid. You’ll be fine._ That was what he’d said. Before he left and died. 

Keith wasn’t okay. He wasn’t fine. Shiro was a good guy, but he was an idiot, and he was a liar. 

Keith woke up crying.

He sat up quickly as if that might dispel the memories, swiping the tears from his face. They ran down his cheek and nose, almost refusing to dry as he pressed his sleeve to his face. They left cold trails down his frigid skin. Then, afraid that he’d disturbed you from your sleep, he looked over to apologize.

There was nobody there.


	4. 4 - Don’t start fights that don’t need to be started. That said, always finish your fights.

He had no idea what to think. A part of him said ‘you already knew this was going to happen’, but the larger part of him was shell-shocked. You’d actually done it. Ditched him. Left him behind. Shiro’s watch on his wrist felt incredibly heavy as he looked at it—it was only something like six in the morning, but you had already abandoned him. He hadn’t known you for twenty-four hours, and you’d already disappeared. 

Slowly, he took his arm out of the sling and flexed it. Rolling it was easier and he tossed the red bandana aside with almost childish fury, the sight of it enough to make his blood boil. The fabric was light and caught in the wind, blowing right back to his feet as if to mock him. 

Your foil blanket was still tucked over him. There wasn’t a note, but why would there be? He could just see it now. You waited for him to be asleep before wriggling out, running off under the moonlight, snickering about how you’d totally had him wrapped around your stupid finger. He shouldn’t be surprised.

Still, it fucking hurt.

He had half a mind to leave the blanket behind out of spite, but knew it’d be wasteful for the sake of his own bitterness. Half-heartedly, he folded it up, before looking up at the brightening sky. Narrowing his eyes, he glowered upwards, as if God might see him.

“I fucking hate you.”

“Aw, after all we’ve done?”

He whirled around, not having expected a response. You were there, leaping down carefully from the step. You clapped your hands together as if you hadn’t just given him the shock of a lifetime by showing back up, and gave him a curious look.

“What, I got somethin’ on my face?”

“You… came back!?” he blurted out stupidly. He cleared his throat of morning hoarseness before squinting to make sure you were really there. 

“Of course I did. Gotta get my blankie, right? And I _guess_ you’re kind of important, too.” You walked past him, stooping down to pick up the square of fabric. He couldn’t help but gape at you in a daze, still unsure of if he was actually awake yet. Slowly, he reached down and touched your backpack. The rough fabric felt real enough.

“Anyways, I woke up early, so I decided to check the networks to see if they saw Lance and co. around. We don’t have any luck in this part of the city, but I put out some peelers, so—”

Your words were choked out of you as he suddenly wrapped you into a tight hug. As soon as he did it, he realized that he didn’t know why he was doing it, and quickly let go. Something had come over him. A well of relief had spurred his body to move in a way it shouldn’t have, and he felt a flash of heat tickle his neck.

“Sorry,” he muttered, sounding like the moron he was. “I… nevermind.”

“…you’re a funny guy, Keith.” You laughed quietly to yourself as if remembering something before clearing your own throat, fidgeting with your jacket zipper in an awkward way. “W-what was I sayin’?”

“Um… Lance.” Keith was eager to move on from the accidental hug and stuck his hands into his pockets so that his body wouldn’t do anything else stupid. You nodded, showing no more emotion on your face than you would’ve if he’d done nothing at all. In a way, he wondered if you even felt affected by it in the slightest, and was embarrassed by how much it flustered him. 

“I know him pretty well. He’s tried to rip a lot of things off of me.” You were scowling darkly, picking at your jacket. The air felt colder around you. “But he doesn’t pawn things right away, ‘cause he’s a stupid asshat with worthless pride. If we can catch up to him by tomorrow, you should be able to get whatever he jacked from you.”

“Fine,” Keith mumbled, still reeling. He cleared his throat again. “Where do we start looking?”

“I dunno. That girl that hangs around him—Pidge—she’s a fuckin’ genius. We’ll be lucky if we can find him without any snitches coming our way.”

“We’ve got to start somewhere.”

“You’re right.” You ran a hand back through your hair before shrugging. “Might as well walk downtown. Ride the train for a bit?”

“Don’t you need a fare?” Keith asked, scrambling after you. You’d already begun to saunter off, your backpack swinging on your tiny shoulders.

“Not downtown. It’s a free-fare zone. Who knows? Maybe we’ll run into some good luck and Lance’ll walk into the same train car.”

Keith snorted. “Good luck? As if.”

You gave him the same sardonic laugh, his expression hidden from you. He couldn’t tell if you were smiling of frowning.

“Yeah, you’re right. As if.”

\---

The day warmed up slowly, the autumn sun seeming to have to struggle in order to climb over the building’s glass-planed horizons. Keith shivered in the frigid air. After having felt the warmth of your body next to his, he wasn’t sure how he’d lived in this cold for so long. 

The both of you looked like any other teenage couple hopping onto the train to get to school. There were quite a few, heavy book bags and sullen expressions that marked highschoolers. Adults’ eyes passed over him like he was non-existent. In a way, things felt almost normal again. Another day of tedious classes to get through. Only, everything was different. Instead of 8 hours of school, he had to fight through 24. 24 after that, 24 after that… there was no refuge. There was no train ride back home, no bed to collapse into. Just 24 more hours of the same fight.

With no place to sit, the both of you stood, your fingers wrapped around a yellow pole as you looked out the window absentmindedly. Keith stood beside you stiffly, hands in his pockets, shifting his weight to steady himself by accommodating to the train’s movements. He couldn’t help but look around at everybody suspiciously, wondering if their conversations were about him or you. A train was a public platform full of private bubbles, and he felt uncomfortable around all these people in such a tiny space. 

“Where are we going?” he asked you, having to raise his voice over the screech of the train through a tunnel. You shrugged.

“Wherever. Doesn’t matter, does it? You got a preference?”

He shook his head. You shrugged again and looked back out the window. He guessed that he’d be on this train for a while and sighed, turning his gaze out the window, too. Lights ripped past in the tunnel like racing flashes, but the clean glass showed him his reflection when it was dark. He looked like some sort of walking skeleton, and you didn’t fare much better. His eyes were sunken and yours were flat; your hair was dull and his was wildly untamed. A pair of zombie kids idling around on the LRT. Fabulous.

Suddenly, you gasped shortly, bumping into him. He looked down at you, wondering why, his eyes catching on your disgusted expression. 

“C’mon cutie, it’s not as if you’ve got to run from me. It’s not as if you have anywhere _to_ run.”

The voice was unfamiliar, but Keith saw your hand clench the pole tightly out the corner of his eye. He looked up, his eyes meeting a tall, well-dressed man. The man had comically arched eyebrows and meticulous salt-and-pepper hair that was groomed to the last strand. One of his hands was wrapped around the hand-hold loops, and the other… Keith’s vision flared angrily with red. The other was cupped tightly around your ass.

“Haxus,” you muttered under your breath, the greeting far from merry. You kept trying to shy away, but Haxus kept moving closer, until you were practically sandwiched between Haxus and Keith. 

“That’s not a very polite tone,” Haxus replied charmingly, a white smile bursting onto his face. Keith was about blinded by the rows upon rows of pearly shark’s teeth. “I don’t find it very respectful, [Name].”

“…I’m sorry. I’ve had a rough morning. How about you, sir? I hope you’ve been well.”

The words that came out of your mouth might as well have been Holy Scripture for how much it differed to your usual vernacular. Even your cadence changed, becoming softer and sweeter than he could’ve thought was imaginable from _you_. You smiled up at Haxus, but your grip was still tight. Tense, Keith watched, feeling himself tremble with anger.

“I don’t know how ‘well’ things can be. Zarkon—don’t tell him I said this—has been a real cunt the past few days. Project on project, making me go all the way out to those disgusting ghettos to survey the land for redevelopment… he won’t even let me take my car! _‘It’ll scare off the rats’_. I mean, I’m grateful for the pay, but cut me some slack! How am I supposed to have fun when he’s working me to the bone?”

“I feel so bad for you,” you crooned, stepping back even more so that your backpack pressed into Keith’s abdomen. “That must be so stressful.”

“It sure is. So you oughta let me take you out some time. Maybe your night’ll be better than your morning… though I can’t guarantee the morning after.”

“Leave her alone,” Keith snapped, unable to tolerate the wet garbage falling out of Haxus’ mouth. Haxus noticed him for the first time, raising one of his intensely angled eyebrows.

“And… who are you?”

“I don’t know,” you said quickly, flashing him a look. You shuffled closer to Haxus on the train, smiling awkwardly. “B-but, that, uh, doesn’t matter. What were you saying?”

“Shh. I want to hear what this young man has to say. Is it your business to know what I discuss with this darling girl? Or are you jealous?” Haxus was smirking at him, and Keith had his hands clenched in his pockets. He shot a glance up at the monitor behind Haxus. They were only a couple of seconds away from the next station.

“Just shut your disgusting mouth,” Keith growled darkly. He could feel the eyes of all the train car passengers on him, but he only focused on one set. Yours. 

“I could sue you for all you’ve got,” Haxus drawled, almost lazily. “I could run you over with my Benz and nobody’d give a damn. Who are you to talk to me?”

“I’m not talking to you.”

Haxus laughed. “Yes, you—”

“I’m putting my fist in your fucking mouth.”

And he did so. Keith leapt forwards, using the train’s momentum to make Haxus stumble and connect more forcefully. His newly healed hand stung angrily with the impact on Haxus’ perfect teeth, but the satisfaction of hearing the man’s squeal of pain was worth it. Haxus crumpled to his knees just as the train slowed to a stop. Reaching out, Keith grabbed your wrist.

“Go!” he hissed, quickly pushing aside people trying to enter the car as he pulled you along.

“Are you an _idiot_?” you howled, running beside him easily. You shook your hand out of his grasp. “Did you even know who the fuck that was?!”

“No, but I didn’t like him,” Keith muttered, scanning the road to find somewhere he could duck off into. “He pissed me off.”

“That was _the_ vice president of Galra Housing Corporations! He literally ejects people from their homes so they can build stupid office complexes! And you _punched_ him?! You’re an _idiot_ , you fuckin’ _dumbass_!”

“Yell any louder and he’ll come after us,” Keith muttered, slowing to a walk after he was sure he’d gotten far enough from the train tracks. He stopped to look back at you as you bent over onto your knees, breathing hard. Unable to handle his sudden snap of emotion, he shouted down at you. “And what the fuck was your deal? Why’d you act so weird around him?” When you didn’t answer, Keith spat out the question that had been making his stomach turn the whole time. “Are you his _mistress_ , or—”

“I’m _not_ ,” you groaned. “I’m…” You made another pained noise, shaking your head. “You know what? I don’t want to tell you. Let’s just say that even though he’s fucking gross and slimy, he’s… ugh. He’s family.”

“You’re _related_ to him? And he _still_ grabbed your ass?!”

“We’re not related in that way—fuck it, Keith.” You were shaking your head. “You’ve fucked me. Haxus was the only way I was making it. He’s a disgusting, horrible person, but I needed him. Now I’ve got jack. Now I’ve only got _you_. Thanks a whole fucking lot.”

You stormed off from him. Although Keith had no choice but to follow…

He merely watched you go.


	5. 5 – Things might go okay. Idiot! They never go okay!

Keith found himself wandering for a long time. He didn’t even have anybody to follow, anymore. It was pathetic of him, really, and he was fully aware of it. He knew that he’d have to suck it up and find you soon if he had any chance of getting back his knife, but at the same time, he found himself trying to actively avoid the thought. Thinking about you just made him feel all sorts of things that he didn’t want to, so he just wandered, thinking about nothing instead. 

But the daylight waned out quickly. Keith stood in the shadow of a skyscraper, his neck craned up, shivering in the frigid wind as the streetlamps all flickered on in unison around him. The yellow spotlights seemed to be even colder. With a sigh, he knew he had to start looking for you. If only he knew how. Even a single city block was huge and full of nooks and crannies, all easy hiding spaces for a tiny girl like you. His best bet would be to talk to one of the other street folk, but he already despised the mere thought of it. He’d made it this far alone. Why not a bit more?

Still, you were smarter than him, even if you did hate him for doing a nice thing for you. He looked down at the hand that he’d knocked Haxus across the face with, clenching and unclenching the fingers. Why had he gotten so mad in the first place, anyways? Sure, Haxus was a dick, and he would’ve been mad if he’d seen anybody treat a person the way Haxus had treated you. But would he have felt _this_ much rage…?

He scowled, closing his hand into a tight fist. Even when you were around, you kept tormenting him in the head. If only Lance hadn’t decided to pick on him; if only he’d never met you in that alley way at all. If only Shiro hadn’t died. 

There were too many ‘if onlys’ and ‘what ifs’ in his life. Keith just hated the fact that there didn’t ever seem to be any good things to balance it out.

Stiffly, he headed out, unaware that he was not as alone as he thought he was.

\---

“[Name].”

“Yeah. What’s up, Foxtail?”

You weren’t sure why the old woman liked to be called Foxtail. You doubted anybody in their right mind would actually name their kid _Foxtail_ , but you also didn’t care enough to ask. 

“A cute boy’s been looking for you,” she rasped, each syllable scented with tobacoo. “Met up with Rich this morning. Said his name was Keith and that he’s sorry. Said you’d know what he meant.”

You said nothing but unconsciously made a face, to which the woman immediately smiled. Seeing her sly, gap-filled grin made you wonder if she’d been given the name Foxtail because of her stupid fucking face.

“Aw, girl, what he do?”

“He fucked me over,” you muttered, playing with the strap of your backpack. It was frayed and immediately, you were so annoyed with it that you began to tear the stitches out, your teeth ground together as Keith’s face floated to the top of your mind. “He. Fucked. Me. Over. Raw.”

“Don’t get knocked up now,” Foxtail laughed, stepping aside to go on her way. “It’s already rough enough for little fucking babies like you. Ain’t no need for mini versions of you to live with your fuck-ups. Abortions are expensive! Next time, just do anal.”

“Wait,” you called out, although a bit reluctantly. You ignored her crass comments and asked, “where’d Rich last see Keith?”

“Baby girl,” Foxtail crooned, suddenly interested. Her box-dye black hair was stringy in the wind as she lowered her hood, squinting to get a closer look at you. “You ain’t never been this interested in no boytoy before. He got good dick or what? Askin’ for a friend.”

“No, nothing like that!” you snapped, “I just need to know where he is. That’s all.”

“Thirty-ninth and sixth,” Foxtail supplied, her tone making you squeamish. Her stupid smile lit up her face again, pearly teeth shining in the dim light. “He’s right on thirty-ninth and sixth, hon.”

“Whatever,” you muttered. You turned and stalked off, going the opposite direction of thirty-ninth so that you could loop around without Foxtail’s thin eyes following you. Only, you were stupid to trust a person called Foxtail in the first place, because Keith was nowhere near thirty-ninth and sixth. She patted the pocketed bills in her chest pocket, satisfied.

The only thing on thirty-ninth and sixth was a real shit storm of trouble.

\---

Keith had a habit of letting his head fall down so that he stared at his shoes. Shiro had always reprimanded him, slapping him on the head so that he’d always correct his posture. Instinctively, Keith lifted up his head, imagining the sharp pain he’d get, especially from Shiro’s right. The memory was bittersweet and Keith couldn’t help the grimace that came across his face.

As he looked up, he noticed a figure in the distance. They were dark and impossible to make out, but it was definitely a person. It was already pretty late, and nobody sane would want to be having a casual stroll in this windstorm, anyways. An early-Autumn blizzard was being predicted. Only people like him would be perched in the streets like this. Keith pulled dark hair out of his eyes as he squinted. Could it be you? For a second, his heart leapt with relief, before he squashed his hopes. What was he getting all happy for? He set his face grimly and walked forwards, the figure coming towards him. Keith’s footsteps then slowed.

That wasn’t you. Unless you’d suddenly morphed into a lanky, Latino boy, that wasn’t you. That was…

“Lance!” Keith blurted out, his vision flaring up with red fury. He immediately leapt forwards, throwing his weight onto the taller boy so that Lance’s back hit the ground. Keith felt Lance wrestle underneath him but growled, his strength fuelled with sheer bitterness.

“Give me my fucking knife back!” Keith yelled, unable to contain himself or stay calm. Not when he was this close. Lance scowled up at him, saying something that Keith couldn’t make out in his own anger. Blinking, Keith looked a bit closer, trying to listen past the rushing beat of his own heart rate.

“Let go of me and I’ll give it to you, for fuck’s sake!”

“…seriously?” Keith asked suspiciously. He let up a bit on the pressure, but kept a hand clamped tightly around Lance’s wrist, so that he wouldn’t bolt. Keith looked around warily. “Where’s your fat guy? Or the girl?”

“Hunk and Pidge aren’t here. Slim it, already! Fuck!”

“Not until you give me my knife back,” Keith growled, tightening his grip. “I’ve warned you already. Don’t keep saying sorry to me after I fucking drive your face into the concrete.”

“Jesus Christ. I try to do a nice thing and this is what happens?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have stolen it in the first place!” he roared.

“Okay, okay! Dios mío, man. Chill. Look, here’s your stupid knife.” Lance reached into his jacket and pulled out the familiar bundle. Keith instinctively reached, but Lance snatched it back, shaking his head. 

“What the fuck?!” Keith spat, “you said you were going to give it to me!”

“I will, after you do something for me.”

“What makes you think I should do _anything_ for you?” Keith said shakily, doing everything he could not to scream. “Everything’s gone to shit because of you! It’s your fucking fault!”

“Bold claims,” Lance muttered, even having the audacity to roll his eyes. He tried shaking Keith off, but Keith held on tightly, not about to let him go for the second time. With a long sigh, Lance suddenly made a serious expression that caught Keith off guard.

“You know [Name], right?”

“I—what?”

The question was so abrupt and unnerving that Keith could hardly respond. Your face flashed to his mind. The feeling of your arms wrapped around his. Shaking his head of the memories, he gave Lance a curt nod.

“I… yeah, I do. So what?”

“I’ll admit, she and I aren’t on the best of terms… but I’m not a horrible person. I can’t watch somebody go to die and do nothing about it.”

“Go to die?” Keith repeated, startled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Pidge’s been keeping ears out, and apparently, there’s some sort of trap for [Name]. I don’t like putting anything but the minimum effort in, but you seem like a max effort kind of guy. Here’s the deal. Save [Name], you get the knife back, and we’re all happy. Deal, amigo?”

“Wait, what? Who’s trying to kill her?”

“Who fuckin’ knows?” Lance retorted, “all I know is that she’s about to say bye-bye to this shit life if you don’t do something about it.”

“Why don’t _you_ help her then?!” Keith demanded, but he was already panicking. You, in danger? Why? Who? His head was spinning and he felt the need to run, his heart racing. Lance merely tutted, easily pulling himself out of Keith’s grasp after he was distracted.

“I told you. I’m Mr. Minimum Effort. Working makes my skin break out. If there’s a death trap, I’d much rather be sending _you_ in for the maiden rather than me. Makes me look like the better person when I’m still alive, y’know?”

“Where is she?!” Keith spat, completely forgetting about the knife entirely. Later, he’d wonder why he was such an idiot. He could’ve probably taken Lance down. He’d only lost the first time because he’d been ganged up on—Lance was skinny and tall. He would’ve fallen easily, and Keith could’ve grabbed the knife and forgotten about you entirely. Wasn’t that the only reason you were around, anyways?

But his feet were still taking him to thirty-ninth avenue and sixth street, and his head was still filled with thoughts of you.

\---

You weren’t sure why you were still stomping down the road. What was in it for you if you went back for Keith? You weren’t exactly a nice person, so having morals was out of the question. It seemed like it was a big waste of your time. Still, you had already gone this far, and it’d be more troublesome to go back than to just meet back up with him. 

Thirty-ninth avenue and sixth street didn’t have anything special. There was really nothing there except for a strip line of closed restaurants, their neon signs looking like skeletons in the black windows. You peered around in the dark, your eyes catching on the lone figure.

“Keith,” you called out, feeling your tone get snappy with annoyance as you remembered what he’d done. The figure didn’t turn. For a moment, you wondered if you’d gotten the wrong person, before sighing. He was probably just being over dramatic about this.

“Okay, listen. Sorry that I yelled at you. I’m back now, aren’t I?”

The person shifted, pulling back a hood, and you saw their face. Your blood went cold.

“You’re back now, are you?” she said dryly, her tone lined with false sentiments that were as cloying as cough syrup on the back of your throat.

“ _Mom_?”


	6. 6 - Dignity belongs to those who can afford it: aka, not you.

“It’s funny you should call me that,” the platinum haired woman sneered, lowering her hood. Her face was just as stiff as you remembered it, pumped full to the brim with Botox, giving her a permanent, perfect frown. You had never seen the woman smile before in your entire life. She continued, her voice unbearably horrible to listen to, like nails dragged across a chalkboard. “This is the only time you’ve ever acknowledged me as my mother.”

“I-I was just surprised to see you,” you retorted defensively, taking a step back. “You still _aren’t_ my mother. I certainly didn’t pop out of your tight ass pussy.”

“Ah. You are as crude and insolent as always,” she simpered, without flinching. She looked down and examined her white, pointed nails, which sparkled in the streetlamps with Swarovski crystals. “Your father and I have been so worried.”

“About what?” you snapped. “Me biting the dust and washing up in the river, showing up on a news story? Me saying bad things about daddy fuckin’ a call girl and shooting me out because he went in raw? Life was already hard enough with my _real_ mom popping pills like candies. God knows that Galra Housing Corps doesn’t need a bad rep!” You scoffed, shaking your head in disgust. “You don’t need me to fuck things up. You guys are fucked up enough without me trying to meddle. Especially after you cut off Lotor.”

The last line was meant to spite her, but you immediately regretted saying his name. Your half-brother had been disowned for trying to overtake the family business, in turn, defying Zarkon, your shared father. That was the only thing you had in common with Lotor. He had never exactly been the big bro of the year, but he was a bit more personable than the rest of your family. You hadn’t heard from him ever since he was cut off from all of Galra Corps’ funds and removed from the mansion. For all you knew, he was the one about to wash up on a river shore. 

You wanted nothing more than to leave, but you didn’t trust her out of your line of sight. She merely kept frowning at you, her sharply angular eyes narrowing slightly with discontent. Lotor’s name had made her tense up, and you watched warily, aware that you were starting to get into real danger.

“I’ve looked past many of your _undesirable_ traits before,” she hissed, “but running away was the last straw.”

“Haxus,” you muttered bitterly, clenching and unclenching your fists. “Is that how you found me?”

“No. It was incredibly cheap to buy information off of your fellow…” She waved her hand in the air, nose upturned haughtily. “People.”

You could hear the air quotations in her ugly cadence. So Haxus hadn’t been the one to turn you in after all. Turn you in _yet_ , most likely. He was probably too busy combing his hair and fretting over his face to contact your father. 

Running into Haxus had been an accident. Your luck had run so shit that he’d coincidentally seen you as he drove past in his gaudy gold Rolls Royce. However, he had been one of the more relaxed employees of Galra Housing Corps, being a close friend of Zarkon. The self-absorbed prick had been in your life since early childhood. He agreed to keep his mouth shut and slipped you a few bills every now and then, and didn’t even ask for anything in return. He just liked to be in the middle of drama. Still, you’d probably fucked him over by mentioning his name. Good for him. It wasn’t like he was getting laid anyways. 

“What do you want, then? For me to go home?” you asked curtly.

“Of course! We want you to be safe and sound. You’re our precious daughter.” Her lie caught on the word, as if the mere thought disgusted her. You scowled.

“So precious that you didn’t even put out a missing persons form? Didn’t see shit on Facebook, hag.”

“My name is Honerva,” she replied unpleasantly, faltering, “and you will refer to me as such.”

“Oh. My bad. Good thing Dad has a small dick for your tiny butthole, Haggar Haggybitch.”

“You wouldn’t want to end up like Lotor, would you?” she snapped crossly. She regained her composure by straightening her back, crossing her arms tightly so that they disappeared in the folds of her dark furred coat. “Your father had plans for you. ”

“He also had plans for Lotor, and that didn’t go so great, did it? Forget it.” You shook your head disgustedly. “You might as well snip me out of your pretty life. Isn’t that what you did to Lotor? Go and do it again. It’d be a treat for all of us.”

“Interesting word choice,” she said calmly, her even tone striking fear into your heart. A footstep. You had no time to turn around before you felt the cold, familiar muzzle of a gun bite into your back. She put her hood back up, casting a dark shadow over her haggard face. 

“It looks like you will be cut out of life after all.”

“This what you do to him?!” you blurted out shakily. For all the times that you’d said that you wanted to be dead, you had never actually meant it. The gun pressed into your spine, grinding against your vertebrae through your clothes. Your eyes met Haggar’s, wide with humiliated desperation. “You kill Lotor in an alleyway l-like this?”

“It’s none of your business,” she said pleasantly, undisturbed at all by the fact that she had orchestrated and was about to witness the murder of her step-daughter. “I hope you will find happiness in the next life, you impudent—”

A hoarse shout rang out at the end of the alleyway. For a moment, you wondered if it was you, and you had somehow vacated your dead body—but there’d been no gunshot. Realizing that everybody was distracted, you quickly ducked away from the gun, scrambling towards a wall and away from your step-mother. A blur moved too quickly for you to catch and the sound of two bodies hit the ground. Painful scuffling. Feet hit the pavement and there was the screech of tires. It all happened too quickly, and it was too dark to see. All you had to go off of was the smell of burnt rubber and the sound of two men grunting.

You were well aware that you were being useless. But the threat of death had been so close that you could still taste the sourness of your desire to live in the back of your throat. You shrank up to the wall and closed your eyes for a second.

“It’s okay,” you whispered to yourself, hugging your chest tightly. If you’d inherited one thing from your fake mother, it was the ability to lie. “You’re okay… you’ll be okay…”

There was the telltale whistle of air following a closed fist, along with grunts that accompanied with painful sounding blows. Somebody was getting the shit kicked out of them. You still weren’t okay, but you couldn’t just sit around while shit was still happening, so you turned to look at the people fighting on the ground. 

“[Name]!” somebody choked out, and with horror, you recognized the voice to be Keith’s. A much larger man had a knee pressed into Keith’s chest and was wailing on him, the gun still in one of his fists. He had a black ski mask over his oafishly large face, and a hooded jacket obstructed the rest of his features. The head moved up to face you and you saw the gun flash in the streetlight. 

“Get out of here!” Keith wheezed. Your cold heart seemed to swell. You saw blood running in rivulets down his swollen face, but he was still focused on helping you. How had he known to find you? How had he come in, right on time to _save_ your sorry ass?

No, that didn’t matter right now. First, you had to return the favour and save him. What could you do? What did you _have_ to do?

Grimly, you calculated. You knew that throwing your body at this mountain of a man wouldn’t be enough to get him off of Keith. Even if you _could_ pry him off, Keith didn’t seem to be in any shape to help you, and you might just make things worse. That gun was still in play, and you knew it was loaded. You were on your own. All you had to use was your wits… and your assets.

Your dad kept a lot of criminal cronies around the house when you were growing up. They were cheaper than regular folk, and had a much more twisted sense of loyalty than normal people did. They probably felt like Zarkon was their world for busting them out of jail. Zarkon gave them the structure they needed in their hopelessly shitty lives in the forms of strict rules. One of those was to steer clear of his children. Especially his angsty teenage half-daughter.

You ground your teeth together, your face burning red with the knowledge of what you were going to do. This man was just about to kill you, and he was frantically lifting the gun up to shoot you down. And what were you doing?

Taking off your shirt.

“You like that?” you hissed, feeling the cold of the air raise goosebumps on your bare skin. The man let out a loud, ugly squeal of surprise, flailing with shock, just as you had expected. His buggy eyes moved like marbles as they darted to you and then away. 

“M-Miss, please!” he groaned stupidly like an idiotic child, “I can’t kill you when you—please, cover up!”

Idiots. They’d be happy to murder you, but they couldn’t handle a pair of underwhelming tits. You jogged up, shivering, and easily wrestled the gun out of his numb hands. He whimpered as you came closer, eyes half-shut as he pretended not to look.

“Get up,” you said coldly, pointing the gun back at him. You pulled the magazine out and checked. Fully loaded. Your nose wrinkled in disgust. He really would have shot and killed you if Keith hadn’t gotten here in time. He probably wouldn’t have lost any sleep over killing Keith, too. You almost had Keith’s blood on your hands. He hadn’t bargained for any of this when he’d met you; there’d be no way to make this up to him.

The man scrambled to his feet. You glanced down to Keith, who was staring up at you, cheeks reddened with a blush rather than a gushing laceration. You knew full well that this was a terrible situation, and his slack-jawed awed look was not helping.

“You good?” you barked, turning your attention back onto the other man. Shame made your own face glow with heat in the cold night air. Keith made a weird sound, which at least told you that he was still alive. That was good enough. You jabbed the gun at the man, who still refused to look at you directly.

“Leave. If you don’t want my dad to know that you saw me like this, you should disappear.”

“I’m sorry again!” he squeaked, as if an apology would suffice for your near death. He ran away, not once turning back. You sighed, dropping the gun onto the concrete with a loud clatter. Before you could turn around to check on him, Keith was throwing something over you. You looked down at the warm fabric, recognizing his red jacket.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Keith muttered, staring furiously at his shoes and shuffling awkwardly. “I was handling it.”

“Sure…” You looked up, your eyes catching on the new scratch leaking fresh red blood down his pale skin. “Your face is all beat up, though. You really okay?”

“I’m fine. Are you? O-okay, I mean.” 

You could practically feel the heat radiating off his face. A dry smile made your lips curl up. How on Earth had you found somebody who was just genuinely a good person? You hadn’t thought that those types of people existed.

And yet, here Keith was.

“Thanks to you,” you murmured softly. You hugged the jacket closer to yourself, shivering in the cold. You kicked the gun with your foot, frowning instinctively as your toe nudged the heavy metal. “You actually saved my life.”

“You did too. So, we’re even.” He still refused to look at you, and you couldn’t help but laugh. That finally got him to look up, confused, as you giggled away like you hadn’t just almost died.

“I’m sorry I left you behind like that,” you said hastily, after calming down. You wiped a tear from your eye. It could’ve been one of laughter or one of genuine fear; after all, the woman that called herself your stepmother had nearly legitimately gotten you murdered. You crouched down and picked up the gun, tossing it thoughtfully between your hands. Finally, you turned it, gripping the nozzle and brandishing the handle to Keith. “I really am. So… thanks for coming back for me.”

He stared at the gun warily, before taking it gingerly. He stuffed it into his back pocket, as if not wanting to touch it for long.

“How did you know I was in danger, anyways?” you asked. You picked your backpack and hoodie up off of the ground, redressing yourself. Thankfully, it hadn’t landed in a puddle. You handed the jacket back to Keith a bit disappointedly, wanting to wear it for a while longer. He shrugged as he surprised you by throwing the jacket back over your shoulders, even though you’d put your clothes back on.

“Lance told me.”

“You _found_ him?” you gasped. Your heart struck with a pang of pain. If he’d found Lance, that meant he’d found his knife… and that meant that he didn’t need you anymore. Meeting him felt like so long ago. Back then, you never would’ve guessed that the beat-up kid in an alleyway would be the one pulling you out of Death’s grasp. You’d helped him by a mixture of chance and selfishness, and he’d saved you out of the goodness of his heart. And now, it was over.

He didn’t seem to notice your forlorn expression and nodded, a thin smile coming across his face as he thought about something. Immediately, you felt bad for wishing that he hadn’t found Lance at all. That blade meant more to him than you did. Who were you besides the dirty kid who roughed him up every now and then? You didn’t have a right to be selfish any more. That had already been paid off, and it was your turn to pay up. You were the kid of a corrupted CEO, after all. Life revolved around money and jack all else.

“He found _me_ , actually. He told me where you were. He said he’d give me my knife back if I brought you back alive. So come on.”

He began to walk away. You bit your lip to the point that it hurt, drawing tears to your eyes. They burned in the cold air. Here you were, leaving him behind in a stupid act of resentment… now you were wishing that he’d stay with you, and he was to leave _you_ behind. He noticed that you were lagging and turned, confusion etched across his bruised face. Your heart lurched as you met his eyes.

“You coming?” he asked. You cleared your throat.

“No, I’m going to take my shirt off again. I saw the way you were lookin’ at the twins, Keith!”

It was a defense mechanism, your crude humour. It was the only way you knew how to deal with the sudden fear of loss. His stunned expression accompanied with that patchwork blush stuck in your memory like embers in the dark. 

Since when had you felt this way about him?

It didn’t matter. You’d already known that you’d have to say goodbye to him someday. You just never thought it’d end up being this hard. The very least you could do was make sure that he wouldn’t forget you, like all the others had. You’d just have to try and prolong your time with him as much as possible.

And maybe then, if he left you behind anyways, he’d at least remember you.


	7. 7 – Gourmet comes in the form of unopened cat food and crusty fries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw you can replace [Name] using the interactivefics ext on google chrome  
> link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/interactivefics/pcpjpdomcbnlkbghmchnjgeejpdlonli  
> it makes the reader insert experience much more immersive, it's free to use, and plugs in any input without screwing with the font! so give it a shot :)

By the time you had gotten out of the whole ordeal, it was far too late to be hunting down skinny thieves, and you and Keith agreed to resume the search tomorrow morning. Tiredly, the both of you found a vacant park bench and spread your aluminum blanket across each other wordlessly. You’d fixed up his busted lip for him, having a whole baggie of first-aid goods. Neither of you said much. What was there to say? Clearly, there was much to be discussed, but it didn’t seem to be the time. You leant your head onto his shoulder and he closed his eyes.

Sleep was dreamless, blissfully so. The exhaustion of the fight seemed to have killed off his nightmares. When he woke, the first thing he felt was gladness to find your head still nestled under his. Tentatively, he reached out, picking a piece of hair off of your forehead. Your eyelashes fluttered but you kept sleeping, turning a bit more into his shoulder. He didn’t say anything about it, but the sight warmed his heart.

You woke up soon afterwards, your eyes sliding open groggily. You felt your face with a hand, which was probably just as numb as his. The night had brought in cold winds, a reminder of the harsh winter to come. It wouldn’t do to keep sleeping outside anymore, but there was no choice. Choice was limited to those who could afford it. He touched his own bruises, gifts from the big guy who’d nearly shot you down in an alleyway. They ached dully, but the cold helped.

“Hey handsome,” you joked, cracking a thin smile. Despite having the emotional sensitivity of a snail, Keith realized that your grin was a front. Surely, you wouldn’t be able to just suddenly bounce back from nearly being killed like that. You patted his arm under the blanket, and he shrugged, deciding to let it go. It didn’t seem to be his place to ask. When you were ready, you would say something about it.

“Ready?” he asked, hoping to have as much daylight to track Lance down as possible. The Latino boy had promised him the knife in return for your life—which seemed to be an asshole move, comparing you to a dull blade—but here you were. He could only hope that Lance wasn’t a liar.

And yet, he was still human. He stood, but a wave of dizziness forced him back onto the bench as his head seemed to spin off his shoulders. Tightly, he gripped onto an arm rest.

“Whoa there, cowboy. You good?”

“I dunno,” he mumbled, feeling a hot burning sensation in his stomach. It rumbled explosively, and you leant back, the concern on your face melting away into amusement.

“Big boy needs a snack, huh.”

He expected you to have food in your gigantic backpack, but you didn’t, your granola bar supply depleted months ago. You were ‘buttfuck empty’, so you said, with a nonchalant shrug. You also refused to break the very fragile bank, and with no money of his own, Keith resigned to dumpster diving. 

“This is unopened,” he said, resurfacing and taking a gasp of air through his mouth. It didn’t seem to help, for he was now tasting trash air, which nearly made him gag. He swallowed bile and tossed the can to you, who caught it deftly, and turned it in your hands. 

“‘Meow Mix’? Wow. You know I can’t say no to good old cat food, Keith. You’re a real food connoisseur.”

Ignoring the biting sarcasm, he leapt out of the dumpster, a half-empty red McDonalds fry box in his left hand. He shook it, displaying a whopping arrangement of six stale French fries. The both of you seemed to sigh in unison.

“I miss your old Asian dude’s noodles,” you muttered, wrenching the top off of the can of Meow Mix as Keith tentatively chewed on the very dry potato. The both of you leant back against a wall in the alley, ignoring passersby as they walked to and fro across the entrance, sparing you no mind. In a way, it was like you and Keith were sharing a private world, albeit a very shitty one.

“Yeah, well, he isn’t open on Mondays.” Keith checked Shiro’s watch to be sure, the bulkiness of it weighing his wrist down. You noticed its silver sheen and perked up, attracted to shiny and expensive looking things.

“I’m surprised McClain didn’t swipe that off of you. Looks pricey. You steal it? Oh, wait. You don’t steal.”

“No, I didn’t steal it.” He sighed, the memory of Shiro’s service photo still seared into his mind. He rubbed his eyes, hoping to fight away the image. “It was… my brother’s.”

“Was?”

“Yeah. Was. He died in the war.” His words were stiff, despite the roil of emotions underneath the surface.

“That sucks. I’m sorry, Keith.” 

He glanced to you as you picked around the watery mush of cat food. You hadn’t seemed to spare him a look yourself, but your tone sounded flat, and you looked to be deep in thought. Keith hadn’t thought that he’d be mentioning Shiro to you at all, that part of his life buried deep beneath immature repression and anxiety. He touched the scratched face of Shiro’s watch, sucking in a deep breath. If he could trust you enough to bring up Shiro, it was about time he got answers about yesterday’s fiasco.

“So—”

“You know—”

The both of you stopped, accidentally attempting to start sentences at the same time. You waved him on, looking back down. 

“So… who was that guy yesterday?”

You stiffened, your hands freezing as you continued to stare down at the asphalt. With a shaky sigh, you set down the can gingerly, looking up at him with large eyes. They were incredibly vulnerable, more so than he could’ve expected from you, and you ran a hand through your hair almost despairingly. At first, Keith felt so guilty that he was about to tell you to leave it, but you continued in a very quiet voice.

“He was a guy my step-mother hired to murder me.”

Your statement ended there. It was infuriatingly undescriptive, and Keith’s shoulders tightened as he felt himself glowering at you. There had to be more to this story; if you were in danger, Keith wanted to help. After all, weren’t the both of you in this together?

“You know that you can trust me, right?”

Your eyes flicked back up at his harsh tone. He couldn’t help being angry; after all he’d done for you, you were still closing yourself off to him, as if things were still a temporary arrangement. He was raised right. He wasn’t about to abandon somebody he’d just saved the life of, so for once, he would’ve liked for you to start being fucking honest with him. He was about to yell at you for just that reason before you silenced him with a small nod and melancholic smile.

“Yeah, I know, Keith. I know.”

His fury dissipated and the words died in his throat. He looked away, a bit shameful for getting his emotions so fired up for nothing. You didn’t say anything else, leaving the air stagnant with tension. Finally, you muttered something, so quietly that he nearly missed it.

“I’m really sorry that you lost your brother, Keith. He really did raise you right. I’m sure you loved him a lot.”

He was a bit confused as to why you’d bring up Shiro again when you’d dismissed it so easily earlier, but he was startled to see large bulbous tears roll down your face. He blinked twice to make sure he wasn’t imagining them. You were smiling regretfully, your eyes bitter as tears ran pure rivers down the dust on your face. 

“I never really had family,” you continued, shakily as your body began to shake with repressed sobs. “I… I think this is the first time anybody’s cared about me so much. I’ve always been on my own, so I just… I don’t… I’m so sorry, I sound like such an idiot, I—”

“Hey,” he began softly, his heart crumpling as he saw you swipe tears from your face, sniffling angrily at yourself as if that disgust would quell them. He reached a hand out and you flinched when you saw. His fingers hovered in the air tentatively. You didn’t say anything, though, and he drew the arm around your shoulders. Inching you closer to his side, he looked straight ahead, making sure to avoid your face as you buried it into his shirt.

“I was so _fucking_ scared!” you whimpered, your fingers tugging at the fabric tightly as you clung onto him, gasping for breath. “I fucking thought that I was going to _fucking_ die alone.”

“You’re okay,” he mumbled. His hand ran down the length of your back, soothing you as you shook in his arms. “Trust me, [Name]. You’re okay.”

“…okay.” 

He waited for you to calm down, offering his body heat to you as you cried yourself out. It didn’t take long for you to scrape up your composure again, but when you leant away, you still kept close to his side. Sighing, he watched your breath cloud in front of your face as you scraped the remnants of tears off of your face.

“I trust you, Keith. More than anybody. Know that.”

He was taken off guard by the statement, but felt his heart kick up a few notches. You refused to look at him as you said it, staring determinedly at the mushy cat food, but he felt a smile itch at the edge of his lips.

“Hey, assholes. Would you stop mouth fucking each other for a goddamn second? Holy shit.”

You jumped away from him as the unfamiliar voice hissed surprisingly close. A dark, stout figure had been standing at the mouth of the alleyway and stormed close. Keith didn’t have time to grab a weapon, but the person threw down their hood, and Keith froze in recognition. They’d winked at him as Lance had danced off with his knife.

“Pidge?” you gasped. “What are you doing here?” 

The androgynous looking girl scowled, shoving thick glasses up her red nose. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that we all like each other. But we have a big problem,” she muttered. Pointedly, the girl’s slight frame turned to Keith, her hands bunched up into white-knuckled fists.

“Lance is missing.”


	8. 8 – Expect the unexpected.

“He’s… missing?” Keith repeated stupidly, not quite registering what was going on. Pidge didn’t seem happy and snarled, her small hands clenched into tight fists as she took an aggressive step towards him. He stumbled back, feeling your hand on his back to support him. It was a bit embarrassing for him to be intimidated by somebody barely brushing 4’9”, but something in her hardened expression made it seem like a lot of anger and power was concentrated into her small body. 

“What the fuck else do you _think_ I mean, asshole?” she sneered bad-temperedly. “He’s out playing Sudoku or some shit? He’s _missing_ , and it’s because of you two broken paperclips playing dickies out here. It’s your guys’ fucking fault!”

“Look, Pidge, we didn’t do anything. I swear, we don’t know where he is.”

Your voice was calm, but you were stiff, shuffling closer to Keith. Pidge had observant amber eyes, and she saw your hand drift to your pocket. A silver blade was in her hand before Keith could blink, and she had it pointed right at you. 

The air went cold.

“Pidge,” you began carefully, but the other girl had already groaned loudly and lowered her blade without needing to be told. Keith’s eyes caught on the engraved surface and felt his heart seize in his chest. There was no wonder that it was familiar—it was _his_ fucking knife!

“I’m not going to stab you,” she muttered, though the way she said it made it seem like somebody was about to get stabbed. Pidge paused, thinking of something to say as she adjusted her large wire-framed glasses. Keith took the chance to quickly stoop down and hiss in your ear.

“That knife she’s holding. It’s mine!”

“What?” You flashed him a concerned look, before looking back to Pidge. The girl held it easily like it was her own, but Keith wouldn’t have mistaken it for the world. He couldn’t. It was definitely his—it was his mother’s.

“Okay, let’s just talk like rational people.” You raised your hands diplomatically, shifting your weight as you took a small step towards her. “Why exactly do you think it’s our fault Lance went missing?”

“Because of _this_.” Pidge displayed the dagger Keith had been going after for so long, holding it up by the hilt. It gleamed in the high afternoon light, an ethereal white sheen on its slate-silver toned surface. Keith felt his hands tremble as he stared at it, wanting nothing more than to dive at the tiny girl and grab it. That knife was what had started all of this, and he could end it just as easily… if not for your hand, still on his back, clenching the fabric of his jacket. Keith swallowed hard, but didn’t move, feeling his hands shake at his sides.

“Yesterday, I heard a tip,” Pidge continued, bitterly recounting her story as her eyes darted to the side. “Somebody wanted [Name] dead. Dunno why or who; don’t care. That’s all I had ears for. Of course, you two know what happens next. Lance is a good guy—sometimes—so he went off to ask for _your_ help.” A nasty look to Keith. “I told him to leave it, but he didn’t want [Name] to get hurt, and we had this knife as leverage over you anyways. After that, he came back to base and told me to stow the knife until we heard from both of you.”

“Lance said he was going to give it back to me.”

Keith knew that he shouldn’t have interrupted, but he couldn’t help but want to remind the Italian-American girl of the Latino boy’s promise to him. Pidge scowled deeply, but nodded begrudgingly.

“Yeah, dickhead. We _were_ going to. _I_ wanted to pawn it, because I’m not a sentimental pussy stunt, but I never break promises. Even if they’re to morons like you. 

Anyways, it was already late and I didn’t feel like going out to a safe-spot just to stash a knife I didn’t want to keep an eye on in the first place, so I just kept it on me. I thought it was weird because Lance never asks me to hold things for him, since he’s always the runner. He seemed fucked up, all shaky and paranoid and shit, but I thought he just had a bad smoke or something. When I woke up, Lance and Hunk already went out early to do rounds, so I waited for them. But they never came back. I went out to look for them. Problem is, I only found Hunk. He never actually saw Lance come back that night and didn’t see him this morning. I checked traffic cams, police waves—nothing. Lance… is just missing.”

Despite the bravado, Pidge’s voice began to shake, and she bowed her head to hide her face. The knife was limp in her hand, and Keith had to swallow past a foul-tasting lump in his throat. He had no love for Lance, never having forgiven him for mugging him in the first place. It really just seemed to him that the guy was merely out playing hooky. Still, it was clear that Pidge was really torn up about this. What if he had lost you in that alley way, like Pidge had suddenly lost Lance McClain? The terrifying thought was enough to render him with some shred of sympathy, and he looked to you. You seemed to be on his wavelength and nodded back.

“All I’m saying is that you’re my last lead,” Pidge finished flatly, glaring at the frozen tarmac. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“We don’t know anything,” you repeated, but your voice had softened. Keith tracked your gaze to the knife and saw your furrowed brow. You were thinking hard about something, so he shut up, figuring that he didn’t need his loudmouth fucking things up worse than he already had. He shifted his weight restlessly as he waited for your move.

“We’ll help you find Lance, okay?” you said decisively. “But we’re going to need that knife back.”

It already seemed obvious that that was the idea, but Keith didn’t know anything about how Pidge’s mind worked. For all he knew, she might decide that stabbing would be a good option after all. Her amber eyes flashed disgruntledly.

“Do you think you can do any better than me?” she spat, challenging you. It was a square off between two equally terrifying girls, and Keith didn’t want to get anywhere close to in between it.

“You’re one of the best, Pidge. You _are_ the best. But you lost your brother, and now Lance, right? I think you need all the help you can get.”

“Keep Matt’s name out of your dirty whore mouth!” she snapped, all but screaming at you. The knife was pointed directly in between your eyes again, but you didn’t flinch, calmly blinking once. Your hands were still raised, and surprisingly relaxed. Keith felt his gut tense as Pidge insulted you, but kept his mouth shut. Something told him that Pidge didn’t mean it, and that was just how she always talked.

“We’ll help find Lance. No promises on it, but we’ll give it our all.”

The knife quaked like a leaf on the cusp of breaking off its branch. Keith couldn’t help but stare at it desperately, watching it come back down to Pidge’s hip again. It was so close that he could practically taste it, but he kept his feet planted.

“You’re smart, Pidge,” you continued, edging Pidge forwards. Things were so tense that Keith forgot to breathe, feeling his head spin with nerves. “You know I’m right. You either get us for that knife, or nothing at all.”

“I know, so shut the fuck up!” She scowled. After a couple moments of thought, she flipped the knife in her hand and held it out to you. The action came so quickly and easily that Keith couldn’t even believe his eyes. All this struggle, all that fight—and the girl was just… _giving_ it back? You took it swiftly, also looking wary, waiting for a catch. Pidge merely glowered at you.

“Look, I don’t care about holding leverage over you with this stupid knife. That’s worthless to me. No, I’m gonna hold you to something that’s actually valuable.”

“Which is?”

“A favour. Blank cheque; ‘World War One Germany’ style. We don’t find Lance, and I turn everybody against you, [Name]. You’d be dead in a fuckin’ day.”

Keith could only imagine the damages that would do. Living on the street already seemed lonely enough, but people still ended up helping other people. Even if it was through nasty deeds or blackmail—humans needed other humans. Pidge could throw a hammer right through the silvery spider webs that kept you afloat. 

“Okay. Fine.” You passed the knife to Keith, and he promptly grabbed it, clutching the worn hilt in his hand. A shaky breath of relief flowed out of him. It felt like an extension of his body had been returned to him, and he could finally relax for the first time in days.

“I don’t know what your deal with that knife is, anyways,” Pidge muttered under her breath. “Not like it’s anything valuable.”

Keith figured that he owed the girl an explanation, especially since she still looked at him with such contempt. “It was my mother’s,” he said, examining the face for any damages. Everything was in order. The engraving at the bolster was just as like he remembered, and—

Suddenly the knife was back out of his hands before he could fully register having it back. He nearly had whiplash in order to look at you as you stared down, eyes wide as you gaped at the blade.

“What is it?” he asked, confused as to what had drawn your attention.

“This fucking logo… I know it. I just… I can’t remember… God, it’s on the tip of my tongue.” Your eyes squeezed shut as your lips moved wordlessly. Keith couldn’t even get in another dumb ‘what?’ before your eyes shot open, bright with realization. “ _Shit_! This is the logo the Marmora Lobbyists use!”

“The marmalade what-now?” Pidge asked skeptically, voicing Keith’s own bewilderment.

“They used to piss off my dad because they’d always manage to block his developments. They’re like, radical environmentalists or something. But they’re fucking crazy, too. One of them literally murdered one of my dad’s partners. I remember it now! It was some sort of extreme vigilante justice, but nobody ever knew about it because my dad paid off all the cops and judges.”

Keith couldn’t help but shiver as you ran your thumb over the marking he himself had touched so many times for peace. He had no memories of his mother. He’d been too young. The knife was a weird heirloom, he knew—Shiro didn’t have any information for him on where it had come from. Keith had just had it on him, even as a diaper-shitting baby at the orphanage. Other kids might’ve had a necklace, or a note, but he’d gotten a weird ass edged weapon. But it was _all_ he had. _Marmora_ …

“This could be a lead,” you bubbled, your words stumbling over one another as you tried to get your thoughts out excitedly. “After what happened to me yesterday, with my crazy ass step-mom trying to pop me… and now Lance…! Yeah; Lance, Galra Corps and the Marmora Group are _definitely_ linked!”

“Then let’s fucking move, shitheads!” Pidge clipped, already walking with her hood back up. “Back to base. Hunk will know what to do. I’ll throw ears out and we’ll go from there.”

Keith didn’t share the same energy as the both of you. He was still dazed, his head feeling like it was fogging over as your words echoed in his head, over and over.

_Extreme vigilante justice._

“Keith?” you asked, your hand now over his. It was hot after he’d been freezing in the cold air, and you squeezed his fingers, eyebrows twitching with concern. He swallowed his discomfort for now.

“Y-yeah, let’s go.” Clearing his throat, he averted his gaze, unable to skirt the sudden feeling of unease that had come over him. Even with the knife tucked back into his waistband like always, something felt off. It felt like something big and bad was going to happen. He was no clairvoyant, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling.

Your hand left his, and he gravitated after you, feeling as if the sight of your back was the only thing actually tethering him to this reality.

\---

“So, technically, if I run it through the cloud with an Ares3 filter over the Alpha locked servers—”

“Don’t use Ares3. It’s too broad; we’d never pull anything relevant up. Try FORDs.”

“Can’t. FORDs wouldn’t work on firewalls.”

“Fuck, you’re right… what about Murphy’s?”

“That could work. I doubt it, but it’d only take a few more minutes to boot. Worth a shot?”

“Yeah, ‘kay. Try it. I’ll work on modifying Kida to try and snake it through encrypted…”

“Are you actually getting any of this?” you whispered, leaning over to Keith’s ear. The ‘base’ Pidge had led the party to was quite decent, but it was still a hole-in-the-wall. It was also an awkwardly large tent sitting in the middle of a back alley. Definitely conspicuous for any passersby. However, Lance had apparently gotten on the good side of one of the ‘twink cops’, so PD let the group’s tent set-up slide as long as no trouble was raised. With the numerous laptops the Samoan male (introduced as Hunk, who apologized for nearly breaking Keith’s shoulder earlier through the power of his ass cheeks) had stacked up around him, Keith didn’t even know if these guys qualified as broke. Their Wi-Fi was apparently serviced by hacking the Starbucks across the road, and their operation was way more impressive than Keith could’ve even imagined.

“Not at all,” Keith replied honestly. The duo’s weird tech-nerd-geek-shit talk had been tuned out ages ago, and the only thing Keith was doing in the mental department was watching for any intruders, as requested of him.

“Isn’t this kind of exciting?” you continued, seeming bored with the silence that Keith had kept up ever since getting here. “You’re going to figure out where your mom’s knife came from!”

“Yeah…”

The lack of enthusiasm was clearly suspicious and he saw your brow furrow in his peripheral. He sighed and struggled to articulate his churning emotions.

“I just… I don’t know. I never thought it’d be this _easy_. I mean, you recognized that logo on my knife in a few seconds, but I’ve had it for _years_ and never knew about the Marmora Group.” The thought made him bitter again. After all his time and suffering, you had plucked a name out of the air like it was no big deal. _“Marmora”_. Maybe he didn’t have the right to resent you for that, but it made him feel as if you already had a closer connection to his spectre of a mother than he did.

“Well, my dad kept it under locks pretty well. What with his ugly mega-corporation’s corruption, power, and money. I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody knew about it.”

“Who was the guy that died? The one that the Marmora lobbyist killed?” Keith asked quietly. He brought his knees to his chin, resting on them exhaustedly. 

“I… I honestly can’t remember. It happened a really long time ago. I was like ten or twelve… Lotor was still around. I only ever heard about it because some people would whisper about it in the hallways. Nobody ever really directly told me about the Marmora Group, and nobody seemed to acknowledge his death at all, either. I never knew the guy, but from the vibe I got, people were pretending that he was never around at all. Why, Keith?”

“I just can’t shake this feeling,” he muttered, burying his tired eyes in his hands and rubbing them so hard that stars blurred his vision. When your face came back into focus, it was set in a soft, almost faraway expression. He blinked, wondering if he was hallucinating the gentleness on your usually coarse countenance.

“I think you’ll start getting answers soon,” you murmured, mimicking him and resting your head on your knees.

“But what about you? Isn’t it dangerous for you to get close to your family and Galra Corps after…?” He trailed off, thinking that you wouldn’t want to be reminded of last night’s adventure.

“After my evil step-mother tried to kill me in the middle of a dark alley?” you finished, seeming totally unbothered. “God, this sounds like a badly written fanfiction or something.” You snorted with dry amusement. “Whatever. Dangerous or not, it’s important to get a handle on this Marmora Group. I feel like they might be the only chance I’ve got of dismantling my dad’s company.”

“You want to expose Galra Corporations?” Keith repeated, now incredulous. “Where did that come from?!”

“Look, Keith. You didn’t grow up with him.” Your eyes were hard and old pain flickered from behind them. “You didn’t… _come_ from that monster. He kills and ruins people’s lives for money and power. Like it’s nothing. I used to have a half-brother too, you know? Lotor?”

The word ‘brother’ brought Shiro’s face to mind, and Keith’s hand instinctively clenched into a fist at the memory of his warm smile. His body shuddered with the recollection of cold breezes, the twenty-one that had swept his hair at Shiro’s funeral. 

“‘Used to’ is the key-fucking-word,” you continued darkly. “Daddy Zarkon ruins everything he fucking touches. Did you think I ran away for funsies?” You shook your head emphatically, your hair swinging at your chin. “At first, I just left to get away from them. But this is a big break, and I can’t turn my back on what’s happening anymore. After Haggar—Honerva—showed up like that… it’s show time. There’s no going back. So yes, I want to expose his fucking ass. But… that’s not everything.”

The sudden softening of your tone made Keith look at your face, but you were already staring at him with a faint, hurt smile on the corners of your lips.

“I think it’s important to find the Marmora Group to give _you_ some peace of mind, too. I can tell that knife’s been screwing with you ever since I brought it up. I don’t know what you’re feeling or thinking, but it must be rough to suddenly have all this new information pop up at once. So… yeah, Keith. It’s dangerous, but I’m doing it. For you, for me… us, I guess.”

“You don’t have to—” he began, but you shook your head.

“I’m not changing my mind.” You closed off with that, turning away to stare blankly at the tent’s flap once more. Keith didn’t know what to say, or how to handle the sudden warm flood in his heart. So, he said absolutely nothing.

The stupid fucking grin on his stupid fucking face said enough, he thought.

\---

“I got it!”

Hunk’s sudden yelp of excitement jolted Keith back into alertness, who had dozed off by accident. His neck was stiff and his back hurt from being hunched over for so long. The sun outside of the tent was absent, replaced by its faithful guard, total darkness. He turned, but you’d already left his side, huddling with the two others.

“What is it?” he heard you ask. Scrambling to his fours, he crawled—headspace was not readily available in the pop-up tent with 4 grown teenagers in it—and tried to butt his head in between some shoulders.

“It’s an underground article from some sketchy conspiracy theorist’s blog. It had like, four passwords on it, which I broke through super easy ‘cause I’m like, the master… b-but I digress. Look.” Some keys clacked. “He talks about some of the more scandalous things Galra Corps have done to keep press quiet. Like, legit super spy James Bond shit. And… here!” Hunk pointed at the screen triumphantly, where his cursor’s blue strip highlighted the text **Marmora**.

“From what we know, they’re not a real lobbyist group. I mean, they’re not registered with the government, or any other NGO associates. They’re like a club of angry weirdos.” Pidge dropped her glasses back onto her nose, leaning over Hunk to scroll down. The blog post had a highly pixelated picture of a logo on a piece of poster paper, and Keith’s heart jittered. The sharp hooked violet lines—it was the same design as the one on his knife.

“Why hasn’t this come forwards?!” you demanded, “this is solid evidence!”

“Uh… no offence, but he seems seriously insane. He’s a really creepy, insane dude. All of his articles are about spying on people who don’t know he’s watching, which is totes nasty. He even talks about himself in third person. Nobody would believe him. So… yeah. No bueno.”

“Can we find him? Talk to him?” you urged.

“Insane Dude hasn’t made a post in over a year. The one about the Marmora was like, three years ago. There’s not a hint of any traffic on the site, so he hasn’t been going back on anytime recently. I looked around the web for his name, but it was probably an alias, because I got nada. His IP was a dead end. I don’t know how to reach him. We’d probably have more luck asking some of the guys that drift out of downtown; the ones that sleep residential—”

“I bet my dad killed him,” you interrupted coldly, the shadows of your face making your expression look all the gaunter. “There’s no point in trying to contact him. He’s definitely dead already.”

Hunk’s voice withered in his throat and the dark tent was full of suffocating silence.

“Is there anything else?” Keith pressed after everybody had averted their gazes awkwardly. “Anything at all about the Marmora Group?”

“Oh. Actually… yeah, there is. Insane Dude mentioned that one of them was taken into arrest at the end of his post. It was a hush hush op… or something like that.”

“Who was it?!” Keith snapped, hearing his voice break. This was the closest he had ever been to his mother, and all the nerves in his body were pent-up and shot. All he had ever known about his mother was that she gave birth to him. Nobody at the agency knew anything about her. Shiro couldn’t tell him anything. He never even knew anything about a father. All he had was this goddamn knife. He’d been nearly one year old when he was left and registered at the adoption agency… so there was _some_ time that he’d had with her. Some time with him… that she’d simply thrown away. Keith was trembling like the drug addicts lining the roads, and Hunk shrank away from him despite having an easy hundred-pound advantage.

“Whom, you mean? O-okay, buddy, no need for the dagger eyes. Sheesh.” Hunk turned back to the laptop and hit ctrl-f, searching for the word ‘arrest’. The page clipped down to a block of text, and Keith didn’t have the patience to read. His dyslexia did not pay him any favours, so he scowled and demanded Hunk to summarize the article.

“Uh… Galra Corps is evil, blah blah blah…”

You leant forwards too, squinting to try and view the tiny words on the laptop screen. Your eyes glided back and forth. Keith watched your face impatiently, feeling his nails dig ruts into his palms. Your eyebrows arched ever so slightly.

“ _‘A pretty girl was arrested by Big Brother today at 1:07 PM. Most likely because she killed one of those Galra corporate fags. The voyeur knows this because that’s what she said to the cop. She says she’s a part of the “Marmora” group that the voyeur was researching, so she catches the voyeur’s special interest. She is pretty for one of **those** kinds of people and has large breasts, about 38, 39D. She is about 5’8 and in her mid-twenties or late teens; not sure. Very long hair. The voyeur saw her get taken in by cops but not the murder. The voyeur tried to find footage or information about who she killed, but she seems to be an expert, because there was nothing on it. There was nothing on her, too. Note: the voyeur believes it could be a government cover-up._

 _She looks into the cop’s camera and the voyeur can now see her face clearly. She has very pretty eyes that are a different colour for those kinds of people. She doesn’t look scared. They tell her that she will be transferred into Altea State Penitentiary. The voyeur thinks that hacking a women’s prison cameras would be an excellent way to observe—‘_ ” 

You paused there and shook your head, shuddering. “It gets really fucking sick after that, but that’s the gist.”

“Altea State,” Keith mumbled, his eyes falling to the floor. His mind was whirling with a maelstrom of confused thoughts. A woman convicted of murdering a Galra Corp partner. The symbol on his knife—his mother’s knife. The Marmora Group. Even though this guy definitely was as insane as Hunk was saying, Keith didn’t think that there were any lies present. “Altea State Penitentiary… where is it?”

“Welp. This is useless in helping us find Lance. Thanks for the big fat waste of time, fuckholes.” 

Keith nearly snapped his neck when he whirled around to look at Pidge. 

“What the fuck did you just say?” he asked, his voice so low that he almost couldn’t hear himself.

Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses, which gleamed blue with the laptop’s backlight. “I _said_. You’re a _fuckhole_ that’s wasting our time. This is the blog of a crazy old redneck who touches his weewee when he watches people without them knowing. Now, look. You promised to help me find Lance, and you’re doing about jack all right about now.”

“I don’t give a shit about him right now!” Keith shouted. “This is my _mother_!”

“I don’t give a shit about your mom!” Pidge shrilled back.

“Well, I do, so how about you just shut your fucking mouth for once and—!”

“Hey, _hey_!”

Your voice broke through the argument, but Keith couldn’t tear his eyes away from Pidge’s heated glare until he felt your hand land on his. Your touch was soft on his fist and his fingers began to uncurl on their own. His shoulders slumped like water easing over a beachfront, and he bowed his head, halfway to shame and halfway to relief.

“I… I’ve been looking for her all my life. This is the closest I’ve ever gotten. And this is the only lead we have, right? So, please. We _need_ to follow this.”

Pidge turned away entirely, having had enough of him. He looked to you, but you seemed unsure, and it was evident in your face. It hurt him to think that you weren’t going to support him after everything he’d done for you.

“Fine,” he snapped, yanking his hand from yours. “I’ll go by myself—”

“No. You’re right.” You sighed, running your hands through your hair. “I think it’s worth a shot. What else have you got on Lance, Pidge? Hunk?”

Pidge’s expression soured wordlessly.

“I thought so. Lance went missing and it’s probably got something to do with Keith’s knife. That means it’s probably because of Galra Corps and the Marmora Group. Why else would he ask _you_ to stow the knife when he’s your guys’ runner?”

Pidge’s expression was stiff. She looked away and sat in silence for an excruciating minute, but Keith bit down on his tongue, trusting you to sway Pidge onto your side like you’d done before. She sighed angrily, scratching her head with both hands aggressively like a frantic dog. She didn’t say anything and avoided looking at Keith like he didn’t exist anymore, but ended up nodded once. Hunk was much more agreeable after seeing Pidge give in.

“The only thing is… there’s no easy way to go to prison besides actually going to jail. Altea State is probably way out of the city, right? No busses go there and it’s way too expensive, anyways. We’ll need to hitch a ride—”

“Fuck that,” Pidge interjected, finally speaking up. “I’m not going to blow some trucker dude just for your stupid ass goose chase.” 

She then grinned devilishly, and it looked like she should’ve been named after some bloodthirsty hound than a gentle bird. Keith shuddered as cold fear trickled down his spine.

“How does a Cadillac sound instead?”

\---

“I can’t believe Pidge knows how to hotwire a damn convertible… why are we driving a convertible when it’s 34 out, anyways?!”

You shrugged, tossing your hair back into the wind. You and Keith were huddled in the back seat, with Pidge at the wheel and Hunk in the passenger’s. Since visiting hours for Altea State had already ended last night, the freak parade he was suddenly a part of had figured that it would be best to head out early the next day. Sleep didn’t come easy and he was restless all night. Could this be it? Would he finally be able to meet his mother after all these years? He didn’t even know what he would say to her when he _did_ meet her. A part of him wanted to yell at her for abandoning him. A part of him just wanted to hug her tightly and never let go again.

As of now it was the time of seven something in the morning. It was the break of dawn, it was freezing cold, and he was living a second’s away from Death’s clammy kiss due to Pidge’s questionable driving. He didn’t think she could actually reach the pedals with her feet, and preferred not to know how the car was moving at all. The winter sunrise above was a soft pink, melting into a vivid hue of orange and then into blue. Its gentle aesthetic was an odd backdrop for the dissonant symphony of screeching rubber and violent rap music Pidge was playing on the radio.

“Doesn’t seem that weird to me,” you replied, yelling to be heard over the wind. “You ever seen the gremlin? The short people are always the fucking craziest.”

“Pidge,” Hunk moaned from the front. “Please drive slower… I’m going to be sick…”

“Get it out over the side, big boy.” Pidge nudged the accelerator, and Keith could only wonder if they were all about to be pulled over and arrested on the count of _speeding_. Pidge giggled gleefully as the car’s engine revved, as if to challenge her to go faster. Keith really wished she wouldn’t, but if it meant getting there sooner…

The winter air felt like it was cutting daggers into his skin. He couldn’t even shiver anymore, his body totally frozen stiff. But you seemed to enjoy it at his side, your elbow propped up as your hand trailed in the air. Keith couldn’t help but watch your side profile absentmindedly. Your velvety hair would fling up into the air and come down softly before flaring up again, looking like ribbons of wildfire smoke. Or maybe it was the way a mermaid’s hair would flow like a cloud of ink under the emerald-green sea. You had a hand clamped down over your ear to protect it from the cold, your fingers tinged with a soft glow of red from the raw air. 

You were really beautiful.

He only realized he was staring when you noticed his overly intense gaze and glanced over. He snapped his eyes the other way, feeling a burst of heat rise to his numb face. You didn’t say anything, and he wasn’t looking, but he could already imagine a wry grin on your features in his head.

For fuck’s sake, maybe Pidge _should_ just crash the stupid car with everybody in it. At least he wouldn’t have to acknowledge to himself that he had a crush on you if he was fucking _dead_.

\---

“Do we have a game plan?” you asked, your hands clutching Pidge’s head rest as you leant forwards. Hunk was blowing chunks in the bushes somewhere, and Pidge was fixing her hair in the mirror, seeming totally disinterested in any conversation. 

Arriving to Altea State Penitentiary hadn’t been difficult at all, and the car was currently parked in the lot, which wasn’t too empty or too full. There was clearly other ‘normal’ people here on this normal day, and it all felt… strange. Keith had always thought that he’d meet his mother in some overly extraordinary way. Maybe she’d blow through the door to save everybody from an impending asteroid. Maybe she was actually a time traveler and she was stuck in the future, unable to get back to him. It was one of his favourite daydreams as a kid; his mom, a big hero, finally coming back for him. Sure, a prison was definitely out of the ordinary, but lots of other kids could go to visit their mom while she was doing time. It felt like he got cheated out of those childhood fantasies.

Keith’s heart felt like it was going to burst right out of his chest. He could hardly hear what you and Pidge were saying, his eyes wide with adrenaline as he tried to focus on steadying his breathing. He still hadn’t figured out what to say or what to do when he came face to face with his mother. He still didn’t know how he _felt_ ; just that he had to see her.

“Keith. Emo boy! Earth to Mullet! You got that knife, right?”

“What? Oh. Yeah, of course.” Keith realized Pidge was talking to him after meeting her glare in the rear-view mirror, and looked to her. Said blade dug into his side as he reached for it protectively.

“It’s not going to be let inside ‘cause it’s a knife. Y’know? So leave that out here in the car. It’ll be a pain to have you guys thrown into a cell because you tried to conceal a weapon.”

“You’re not coming?” you asked.

“Well, it’d be weird if four kids came in looking to talk to one lady, right? We don’t look like brothers or sisters or anything, so there’s no point in it. It’d draw way too much attention. Hunk and I will wait out here. You two do your thing. But—” She whirled around to look at Keith directly, her gaze piercing through his soul. “Do _not_ forget why we’re here. It’s not for you or your mommy issues. It’s because Lance is still missing.”

“Okay.”

“ _Okay_?”

“Okay!” he repeated, more compellingly. Pidge sighed testily, looking as if she was still extremely unhappy with this turn of events, but had no choice. She reached her hand out and Keith hesitated, staring down at her palm.

“It’ll be okay, Keith,” you said at his side. He glanced at your face and you nodded with reassurance. He still didn’t trust Pidge or Hunk, and to be honest, he still didn’t give a rat’s ass about Lance’s disappearance. But he trusted you. 

With his own unhappy sigh, he pulled the knife out of his belt, begrudgingly and carefully placing it into Pidge’s hand. She tucked it under her arm and cocked her head towards the jail. Morning sun sparkled off of her glasses.

“Go on, then. Hey; come back in one piece, would you?”

“We’ll try.” You got out of the car and Keith followed. 

This was it.

The building wasn’t very intimidating. Besides the coils upon coils of barbed wire looking black against the powder blue sky, it could’ve passed as an ordinary school building on the end of a block. Old, brown brick was piled up into a short bungalow that extended outwardly. His eyes darted across the words **Altea State Penitentiary** , struggling to fight the mix-up of letters in his head to focus. The words burned into his brain and heart like an angry brand. His mother… the one he’d been looking for since he could remember… was actually here. 

You looked at him, seeming to realize that he was freezing up.

“You okay?” you breathed. You reached out and clutched his hand. The both of you were so cold that he almost didn’t feel it, if not for the squeeze you gave him. He looked down and caught the glimpse of a smile on your face. Even though he was lying to you and himself, he nodded weakly.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Okay. Then let’s go.”

Hand in hand, the both of you stepped inside.

\---

The guard at reception looked incredibly bitchy, as Keith would imagine all prison guards were. She was old, with wiry brown hair streaked with grey tucked back into a tight bun. You were barely tall enough to reach the counter, and tapped on the window to get the guard’s attention. Deliberately, the guard ignored you and Keith for long enough to pick up the phone, hang up the phone, write something down, flip a page, fart loudly, and then look up.

“Business?” she asked monotonously.

“We’d like to request a visit.”

“Name?”

“Uh…” You hesitated. The article from Insane Dude had never actually specified the woman’s name, so you gave the guard a shy smile. “We’re actually investigating somebody for school. It’s a psychology project, you know? And we’ve got this super intense professor who like, _loves_ John E. Douglas, so we figured we should do an experiment like Douglas’, and talk to prisoners that committed violent crimes to develop criminal profiling. We really want to go above and beyond. Right, Sven?”

Keith was so confused as to who ‘Sven’ was that he said nothing, jumping with shock when you stamped on his foot.

“O-Oh. Right, yeah. Psychology! James Dougworth. Gotta get an A, you know…?” 

_Sven?!_ he mouthed angrily, looking down at you. Your eyes flashed ‘go with it’, and you turned back to the guard sweetly, who didn’t even seem to be listening.

“Yup! Educating the youth’s bright future and all that jazz. So, we want to talk to the woman who was convicted of murder on October 5th, 2014.”

The guard smacked her lips. “I’m going to need the name of the prisoner.”

“Right. W-well, we were hoping that you could, uh… look it up in the database.”

“You don’t have a name, you don’t have a visit.” The guard rolled her eyes and then went back to her notebook. Keith pushed you aside and slammed his hand down on the counter desperately.

“Please! She’s my mother. I haven’t seen her in years… I _need_ to. You’re the only one that can help me.”

The guard’s brow wrinkled in confusion with his sudden outburst. But she merely rolled her eyes again, so leisurely that Keith could almost see each muscle move her eyeball around its socket. 

“No. Name. No. Visit.” 

The drawl was painfully slow and Keith nearly tore his own hair out of his scalp.

“How about this for a name?” you chirped up. You slid a wad of bills onto the counter, and Keith saw a line of Benjamin Franklins frown disapprovingly up at him. He looked to the guard, whose full attention was finally on you, and she licked her thin lips. After rubbing the dark hairs on her upper lip nervously, she snatched the crinkled notes and looked around shiftily to see if anybody noticed. She scowled down at you and Keith with narrowed eyes before turning to the computer monitor at her side, typing with her index fingers like some sort of demented chicken. Each key press felt like there was an eternity in between. 

“Sven and…?

“Slav…ia!” Keith supplied quickly, ignoring the disgruntled look you shot him.

“Sure, Sven and Slavia. Move to the visitation room. She’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”

“Thank you!” you—or should he say, Slavia?—breathed, relief evident in your tone. You looked at Keith expectantly. He followed you, feeling bogged down, like he hadn’t fully woken up from a dream. This was it. This was when it was finally going to fucking happen. He was going to find the person he had been looking for after a near two decades of searching.

There was a security checkpoint to screen people before they could enter the visitation hall. Keith shook his jacket and pockets free of wrappers and lint, and allowed the bored-looking guard to frisk his body, not even feeling humiliated despite the hand on his junk. His heart raced with adrenaline. Despite the fact that he truly loved Shiro for everything his adoptive guardian had ever done for him, this was his _blood mother_. This was the answer to every question in his life; he was sure of it.

The visitation room was chilly when the two of you finally entered and he drew his jacket around himself. You looked around at his side, your eyes scanning the faces of the orange-clad women as the both of you tried to find out the mystery Marmora lady. Neither of you knew what to look for, besides somebody sitting alone. A lot of prisoners were already facing visitors wearing ordinary clothes, their conversations hushed. The atmosphere of prison didn’t allow for any exuberance, and the same depressed expression painting everybody’s face was crushing. Keith’s blood rushed in his ears and his eyes darted from face to face. Would she look like him? Would she recognize him after all these years?

“So… are you the two kids who asked for me?”

He heard the soft, accented voice and turned. His eyes fell upon the woman who spoke. She had her arms crossed across a large bust, a white long-sleeved shirt under the oversized orange jumpsuit. **ALTEA STATE PENITENTIARY** was stamped across her left breast in bold, black ink. She was fairly tall, coming up to something like 5’8”. Her hair was tied up into a loose bun, with hair falling out to frame her face. She was definitely pretty and looked just as Insane Dude had painstakingly described. Keith’s heart leapt.

“Yes,” you spoke for him, after he floundered silently for too long. You stepped forwards. “That’s us. And you are…?”

“Allura,” the woman replied with a gentle smile. 

“Please, take a seat.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Read) Elsewhere: https://goo.gl/56ySnR


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